GATE: Of Dragons and a Spirit of Fire
by Pkd
Summary: Few years after the events of Halo Wars, the UNSC Spirit of Fire finds themselves above the orbit of a unknown world without any clue to where they are and what brought them here. Faced with a new obstacle the crew of the Spirit of Fire descends upon the world where they meet new allies and enemies, along with an relic of the past, as they try to find a way back home.
1. Arrival

**05:57 Hours, March 28, 2536 (UNSC Military Calendar)**

 **Unknown Location**

The Spirit of Fire, a Phoenix-Class Colony ship refitted into a support ship, sailed silently through the vast reaches of empty space. Battered and old, the former colony ship saw through many actions throughout its entire service history. From ferrying colonists to newly discovered worlds, to suppressing insurrectionist activities, to providing support to orbital and ground force in the war against the Covenant. The battle at the mysterious artificial alien world took a toll on the ship as thousands of brave soldiers sacrificed their lives to halt the Covenant from gaining access to accelerate their genocidal war on humanity, and the using the slipspace drive - their only way of making back home - to destroy the alien world, preventing the Covenant from gaining valuable asset. However, it prevented her from making a jump to human space and forced her into a long painful journey back home.

This was few years ago, the ship's crew were already waking up from their cryp-sleep and are now attending to their respective duties thanks to Serina waking them up. Eventually the ship was filled with marines patrolling the ship's hall, engineers and technicians conducting maintenance operations on various machineries aboard the ship, and sailors making sure the ship was operating at full capacity. Many were still wondering why they were awaken from their slumber, but only handful currently knew the reason why.

"Hello captain, I take it you slept well?" Serina asked her CO.

Cutter twisted his neck to release the muscle there. "Feeling a little stiff from the sleep." He said as he entered the lift and pushed the down button that lead him to the observation deck.

"Serina, give me a sitrep on the ship."

"Most of the damage we received from the last battle has been fully repaired; The port superstructure has been rebuilt along with the 5 herons docked with it. All weapon system has been repaired and functional, though the MAC gun is suffering some system issue. All surviving crew are accounted for and all woken. Should I go over the inventory?"

"Later Serina, for now let's look at our current situation."

The lift quietly descended down to the observation deck as it pass by numerous decks. It continued on for several seconds until it came to the bottom superstructure of the ship, where the former observation deck was converted into a personal laboratory.

"Serina, how long have we been sleeping?" Cutter asked Serina, the ship's on-board smart AI.

"Approximately 5 years, 1 month, 28 days, 4 hours, and 34 minutes since we went to cryo-sleep, captain." Serina reported.

"Five years." Cutter muttered, a sense of deja vu flowing through him.

Cutter soon arrived at the makeshift laboratory and entered to see Anders busy working with the starmap.

"Professor, I take it that you enjoyed your beauty sleep?" Serina asked teasingly

"Yes, I had a good sleep, and I mean good in that I woke with my skin raw and the bronchial surfactant I swallowed taste like crap." Anders sarcastically replied without getting distracted from her work.

"Let's cut the chat ladies. Professor, it's good to see you, do you have any idea where we are?" Cutter asked.

Anders then brought up a holographic images from the holo-table projected a Earth-like planet they were orbiting above; Cutter saw that the majority of the world was similar to Earth - where majority of the planet was covered in water with the remaining space occupied by land - though compared to Earth there were only about 3 major continents, with the largest landmass where the Spirit was orbiting above.

"Hmmm… I don't know where we honestly." Anders muttered. "I checked the ship records for anything that happened few hours ago that took us here… But all I'm getting is that one moment the ship was on its course, and the next thing, we're at this place." Anders finished with a baffled tone. "Wherever we're, its at least at a habitable world, scanners have the world having the same breathable atmosphere as Earth.

Cutter silently looked at the holographic image of the planet, contemplating on his next course of action. While the ship was not near any UNSC space to call for aid, they were very lucky the ship was currently orbiting a perfect habitable world with resources to restock supplies aboard and conducting some minor repairs to the ship. However, they were still stranded without any form of FTL travel. Cutter didn't knew how long they were going to be stuck on this world, but at the same time whatever unknown force sent them to this unknown world there was a chance that could find the source of it, and use it to get back to the UNSC.

"Captain, I ran through a general scan and found out that there are many life signatures inhabiting the world, most of the signature is located on the largest continent of the world." Serine reported. "Not detecting any sign of technological development, but I'm also sensing an unknown type of energy emitting from the surface."

"Unknown energy?" Anders inquired.

"Is it possible this energy might be responsible for bringing us here?" Cutter also asked.

"Can say for sure, but I'll need either direct sample or a closer look at the surface for further analysis." Serena said with her head slightly down while scratching her own chin in contemplation, as multiple different calculation and analysis course through her.

"I'll have Red team and a recon team ready in an hour." Cutter said. "We're going to find out where we are at, what brought us here, and why we're here."

 **Please read and review! Future chapters will be coming soon!**

 **Also apparently** **the uploaded one gotten some weird formatting**


	2. Landing

**Next chapter of my Halo/Gate story!**

 **So the Spirit of Fire somehow ended up in the orbit of the GATE!world which will have its name soon. So what will the Spirit of Fire find down on the planet?**

 **The timeline of Spirit's arrival takes place after the battle of Alnus and before 3rd Recon Team's deployment.**

 **Also the JSDF will be in the story, so they will get a rude awakening that they aren't the dominant players in Falmart anymore.**

 **Landing**

 **05:57 Hours, March 28, 2536 (UNSC Military Calendar)**

 **Unknown Location**

"Spirit of Fire actual, this is Quebac 204 reporting in we're approaching the drop zone, ETA 1 minute." CPO Jennifer Leblanc reported as she gracefully maneuvered the dropship down towards the drop zone.

In the troop bay of the Pelican sat Spartan Red Team and ODST team Sunray 1-1 of Boomerang company. Both teams were sitting on on their own side of the bay. The spartans were silently seated as they inspected their equipment and weapons, and double checking again to make sure their gears were in top condition. While the ODST were doing the same thing as the spartans except for a bit nosier.

Major Vaughan was silently looking at a datapad occasionally swiping his finger on the screen, as Quinn was conversing with Sparks of some obscure 23nd century comic, while Gruss and Turpin were checking their own respective equipment; Gruss sorting through his medical supplies with Turpin doing some final diagnostic checks on his drone which he affectionately named "Bill".

"Thank god I'm off the ship, couldn't last another moment breathing all that recycled air in the ship." Quinn said in relief. "Though what do you think we're going to find down here?" She asked Sparks.

"Don't know, all I know is the place being like Earth and has shit tons of living things." Sparks replied. "At least the planet is something we can easily breath and live on. If we're going to be stuck on a world, it might as well as be world that could easily become a new colony.".

"Quite fitting because the Spirit is a colony ship herself, albeit a modified one." Quinn remarked.

"Wouldn't be surprised if the captain is planning to deploy a base down to harvest some valuable resources." Gruss or "Doc" muttered.

"Doc, I'm pretty sure the Spirit has enough supplies to last us 2 years. Heard the logistics up there praise that every single cargo holds is filled to the brim. Hell I'm pretty sure we haven't yet used up ⅓ of the supplies we have." Turpin said as she closed down a panel on Bill's cowling.

"Red Team and Sunray, we're approaching the dropzone. Get ready to disembark." Quebac 204 announced through the speaker.

The occupants of the Pelican felt the dropship descending down quickly, causing some individual's stomach to lurch at the sudden movement. The pelican's downward thrusters caused it to slow its descent, and when it was sufficiently low enough to land it deployed out its landing struts. Gently touching down on the soil, the dropship let out a hiss as it depressurized and opened the hatch of the troop bay.

The ODSTs and Spartans exited the dropship and took position to secure their LZ from potential hostiles. Jerome then announced through his team and the ODST's TEAMCOM in a stoic voice. "LZ is clear. Red team, Sunray 1-1, we're moving in for recon." He motioned them to the forest they landed right outside of that was mostly surrounded by a valley.

The pelican dropships that dropped them then had its landing gears back into the chassis and ascended off the ground to a stationary position, hovering a few hundred feet above ground. "Alright boys and girls, we'll be staying here with you to provide aerial recon and support." CPO Leblanc announced, then pushed her controls forward which caused the Pelican to fly over the forest and and disappear from the watching eyes of the ground team.

Red team and Sunray 1-1 then moved into the vast forest before them and entered the unknown. They were sent to recon and investigate the surface of this new world they were orbiting above, especially the strange energy that traced the planet's surface. The forest they were in was one of the closest source of it. If the forest's inhabitat didn't proved to be hostile or the energy here posing any threat, then it could be a possible site for a firebase to be deployed.

As the ground team moved through the forest, Major Vaughan saw how eerily similar the trees in this world was compared the ones he seen in nature parks or reserve at Earth's restored ecosystem. In fact it looked like someone took several tree and plant samples from Earth and directly planted here, he should later note this to the captain for future investigation. Suddenly reminded of home, Fredrik Vaughan wondered how his home planet was doing, if his parents were still alive or dead after spending few years in cryo. Were they dead or alive? Did they lost the war with the aliens? Was the crew of the Spirit of Fire the last remnant of humanity? Countless thoughts and scenarios went through the 30-year old ODST to what happened during their long-sleep. Though not having the best of relationship with his family considering their attempt to put him on a predetermined path and involvement in the escalating colonial tension, the ODST major was still concerned for their well-being.

He checked the ammo counter on his HUD for his silenced MA5B assault rifle and saw that his gun has around 300 rounds, which showed him he had with him 5 magazines in total. Might be a bit overkill for a short recon mission like this, but better to be prepared than caught off guard after what happened with those weird alien zombies.

The major glanced to his right to see the team's drone operator Turpin somewhat tense as she pointed her M7S SMG at whatever direction she pointed at, which didn't surprise him as he knew her rather infamous luck or bad luck of dragging people into unexpected adventures. He heard her softly whispering to any god or goddess to not to drop an anvil on her and the team.

The sound of a branch snapping made the ODST turned to his left to see the Spartans somehow moving silently like ninjas across the forest ground. He was intimidated by their large stature and thick olive green armor that made him look like he was seeing gods in a physical form. Each of the super soldiers were carrying a newly-issued BR55 battle rifles in their hands along with other weapons mag-locked to their back: 092 held a M90 shotgun, 042 had a M41 rocket launcher, and 130 carried a M739 SAW with a 150-round box magazine. The spartans moved in a fluid motion not like a normal human or a clanky machine, but somewhere in-between, and something else that made them a bit freakish.

Vaughan's COM suddenly burst into life and heard Cpt. Cutter's voice coming through it. "Jerome, Vaughan, you have anything yet?"

"No signs of intelligent lifeforms, but we're reading high energy levels here, sir." Jerome replied.

"Radiation?" Cutter asked.

"Negative sir, whatever it is, I'm not getting a clear reading."

"Captain, the forest appears to be taken right out of Earth. Trees may be a little different but I recognize them native to Earth." Vaughan added his piece. "I think I even saw what appeared to be a deer in the distance."

"I see, I'll send both your data and cam to Serina and Anders for further analysis." Cutter said as he close the COM.

After Cutter cut contact, Jerome noticed a small triangle grey blimp pass by followed by several more. "Contact." He whispered through the TEAMCOM, immediately sending them into defensive ring position that covered all their surrounding.

"Spirit of Fire Actual, we have unknown contact around us." Jerome reported.

"Say again? Unknown contact?" Cutter's voice was heard.

"I go additional movement to 11 o'clock of my position." Sparks shouted out, as he readied his BR55.

"Where's the dropship, cause we might need that support in this upcoming FUBAR situation." Turpin cried out.

It was a tense moment as the UNSC team quickly found themselves in a potentially dangerous situation. Yet no one in the team panicked or took action as they waited if the contact was hostile or not. That last thing they needed was to start a conflict with a brand new specie. The bushes around them started to shake a little and mummering sounds of some unknown language could be heard, showing where their unexpected followers were hiding in.

The Spartans and the ODSTs turned on the thermal sensors in their helmet to see the exact position and number of their potential enemies, and the thermal images showed around 30 contacts which had humanoid shape surrounding them.

"Spirit, I have around 30 contacts around us. Can't tell what they're armed with but based off my thermal image, it likes like bows, spears, and arrows." Vaughan whispered, holding tight on his weapon but fingers off the trigger.

There was a rustle in the bushes and trees before several dozen individuals appeared out of their hiding place, showing their full appearance to the stunned group.

They appeared to look human but additional careful observation showed pointed ears like that of a dagger instead of traditional round ears. All of them had a tanned complexion with variety of hair colors ranging from white, blond, brown, and black, and have a dashing look that made them attractive to a normal human being. And they were all armed to the teeth. Men and women were wielding bows, spears, and swords pointed towards the ODST and Spartans. The human-like beings were whispering to each other, never keeping their eyes off the intruders to their forest home. While some appeared to be apprehensive or fearful at the Spartans, never seeing such a tall and armoured being.

The ODST and the Spartans were surprised by the nature of the human-like beings, but the Spartans quickly rid of the surprise and onto analyzing the potential threat and escape route if things went hot, while most of the ODSTs were more surprised as they seemly recognized the seemly human beings with pointed ears.

"…Holy crap, are you seeing what I'm seeing." Quinn whispered through the team's personal COM.

"Yeah, seeing Elves right now." Gruss muttered in disbelief.

"Of all the things, we're meeting freaking fantasy elves!" Turpin exclaimed. "…At least it's better than some butt-ugly aliens." She added.

"Well it's a refreshing sight, just hope these aren't the haughty, arrogant, stick in the ass types." Vaughan said.

"The heck is an elf." Sparks asked his ODST teammates, who looked at him in disbelief.

"Captain, are you seeing this?" Jerome calmly asked his CO.

"I'm seeing this alright." Captain Cutter replied as he saw honest to god elves in front him in the helmet cam he was witnessing. "Can you make contact with them?" He asked the leader of Red team.

Jerome listened to the language spoken between the elves, which he could not understand in anyway.

"Language barrier will hinder it, but physical gestures might work. We will need to Serina to help decipher the language." Jerome reported.

"Noted, I'll get Serina to translate their language. But for now do not engage unless you're attacked." Cutter said his new order to the ground team.

Back at the bridge of the UNSC Spirit of Fire, the ship's AI Serina was going through the data and report sent back from ground team when they first entered the forest. With a more close-up view of the surface she and Anders managed to get more detailed data on the energy source that seem to flow over the world. The AI saw how the energy seem to pulse through the trees and plants and the ground itself. She wasn't sure how she could describe the energy but from her observation it sort of seemed something natural, as in it was part of the world around and something that always existed, and at the same time a potential power if properly used could become very powerful. Serina turned to her left see Anders trying to solve the energy on the surface, while looking at the starmap before her as she tried to figure where they were in the galaxy using the nearest known pulsars, which didn't showed much where they were.

The AI was soon shown the live helmet cam footage of the ground team's current encounter with the elves and given orders from the captain to translate the language as best as possible. Serina quickly ripped apart the language spoken by the elves to match them with any possible language spoken in human history or discern what each of the spoken words mean. Not even a nano-second did she found a match: Greek and Latin language. The analysis she ran showed the elves somehow speaking a language that was a composition of both Greek and Latin, with some phrases and words she never heard of. Quite curious of how they appeared to be speaking this unique combination of two different languages, the linguistic expert back at UEG space would have a field day learning the origins and details of the language.

So in a matter of few seconds or so, Serina made a rough translation program that could translate the Greek-Latin hybrid language into english. She triple check that the program wasn't developing any faults or glitches, and made sure that the words match as much as possible, and also adding in a software that will translate new words into recognizable ones. She sent a message to the captain, informing of her completion of a translation program and sent it to the ground team below, and then downloading it to all HUD or neural interface in every UNSC personnel aboard the ship.

"Alright boys, the language barrier is down." Serina informed the ground team.

All the ODST of Sunray 1-1 and Spartans of Red team found their HUD downloading the translation program and completed in a few second, which now allowed them to understand what the elves were speaking.

"Who are these armoured people? I never seen an armour like that before?"

"What are those giant green golems?"

"Are these the new race that came out of the Gate at Alnus?"

"They don't look like Imperial soldiers."

"Perhaps Elbe sent some new monsters to kill us?"

"Why do they have the strange glass on their face?"

"We should attack before they do."

The last sentence got all the UNSC personals to click the safety off their weapons in case the elves decided to attack them, but they made no further moves beyond point their weapons at the elves.

Vaughan then decided to be the first to make contact with the elves as he stood up. "I'll be the first to make contact, hope this doesn't go really hot." He said through the TEAMCOM.

The elves became tense when the major stood up, unsure of what the standing individual was going to do next. The unknown strange armoured individual cladded in black suddenly spoke out.

"My names is Major Fredrik Vaughan of the UNSC, we come in peace." The armoured individual announced.

There was a moment of silence before the one of the elves spoke, presumed to be the leader of the bunch by Vaughan. "Why are you in our forest, Major Vaughan?" The male elf questioned the ODST sternly.

The male elf who spoke was around 5'9 feet tall with a lean muscled body. His face had a sharp angular look shared among his kind and a long dark hair. He wore a black leather armor that protected his upper body and had a small worn-out green cape tied around his waist. Tied around his neck was a brown cloak which made him look like a ranger - which he probably was - that had tribal symbols written on it. He wielded a simple, yet elegant bow.

"Our people are lost and far from home, and we know nothing of this strange land. So it is why we were sent here to here to know find where we are at." The major spoke the truth in a vague way.

"We are the dark elves, you're in the Schwarz forest on the northern border of the kingdom of Elbe." The dark elf said, his bow and arrow still aimed at Vaughan.

"Schwarz forest? Kingdom of Elbe?" Vaughan questioned. He knew Cutter and Serina were listening to the conversation and writing down any potential intel from it.

"The forest is at the Roldam valley near Tybe mountains. The land is controlled by Elbe kingdom, ruled by the humans." The elf answered.

'Humans?' Vaughan was stunned that humans were in these land. Turning on his private COM to the ship he said. "Captain, are you getting this?"

"We're getting it. After we deploy ground sats, we able to get a much clearer picture from orbit to ground."

Vaughan decided to ask for further questions to know what kind of world they're in. "Humans?"

The dark elf looked at him with a bit of a suspicious look. "Humans rule most of the continent of Falmart, but they're not the only race to dwell. Elves, goblins, ogres, fairies, dwarves, warrior bunnies, and countless other species. All of them came through the Gate at Alnus hill."

"The what again?" Vaughan asked in puzzlement from hearing that all the races here came through some sort of "gate" at Alnus hill. Also a good clue in finding out how they appeared above this world.

Before the elf leader could speak a arrow suddenly appeared out of nowhere and hit the tree besides him. All the dark elves looked to the direction of where the arrow came from and the one of them shouted. "Raiders!"

The ODST, Spartans, and the Dark Elves could hear a crude symphony of war cries and shouts, promising death and violence, and also the ground they were on started to rumble, showing the raiders had quite the numbers.

Jerome tapped the COM unit to the ship and reported their status. "Spirit, we have company."

 **Yup, the UNSC encountered the Dark Elves of the Schwarz Forest, and thats just the icing of the things the UNSC will encounter, friendly or hostile.**

 **Originally thought of having Sunray 1-1 and Red Team land in the forest where Tuka's elven town was but decided that the Dark Elves needed more love.**

 **Expect the canon GATE storyline to get derailed by the Spirit of Fire.**

 **One last thing is the crew and vehicle rooster of the UNSC Spirit of Fire as of this story.**

 **Crew List:**

 **Naval Personal: 3,223 Personal**

 **Marines: 3,735**

 **ODST: 635**

 **Army: 1103**

 **The Marines of the Marine 45th regiment, the remaining ODSTs of the 9th Shock Trooper battalion, the Army 16th Armoured battalion and the Army 23rd Recon Company.**

 **Current Vehicle List:**

 **67 M808S Scorpions**

 **98 M12 Warthogs**

 **35 M274 Mongoose**

 **11 M850 Grizzlies**

 **1 M145D Rhino**

 **1 XRP12 Gremlins**

 **18 SP42 Cobras**

 **7 Bison APC**

 **4 M650 Mastodon Battle APC**

 **29 M9 Wolverines**

 **3 M312 Elephants**

 **45 HRUNTING Mark III Cyclops**

 **54 D82-EST Darters**

 **51 D77-TC Pelicans**

 **14 UH-144 Falcons**

 **10 D20 Herons**

 **3 AC-220 Vultures**

 **42 AV-14 Hornets**

 **21 AV-22 Sparrowhawks**

 **5 B-65 Shortswords**

 **3 GA-TL1 Longswords**

 **I included vehicles from Halo Wars 2 into Spirit's database to manufacture just for the story's sake.**


	3. First Impressions

**Hello folks! A new updated chapter for "Of Dragons and a Spirit of Fire"!**

 **To answer the questions of if the JSDF will be in the fic, and if you're not following my story on , then yes the JSDF will be in the story. Though they won't be the only big players now that a massive spaceship is over their head and equipped with enough weapons to lay waste to Tokyo dozen times over and able to manufacture enough weapons and vehicles for a entire division.**

 **Also this story will not follow the GATE storyline since the SOF's arrival caused a butterfly effect that will heavily change or prevent certain plot points of GATE from happening. Don't expect certain characters to be shown or even be alive.**

 **Sunray 1-1 and Red Team is the main UNSC group that will be featured prominently alongside other UNSC members.**

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 **First Impressions**

 **07:47 Hours, March 28, 2536 (UNSC Military Calendar)**

 **Surface of unknown planet, Schwarz Forest**

Douglas saw the raiders that were about to attack them were around few hundred man dressed in rags and leather, and armed with blades, axes, spears, and bows. They charged in like a mindless angry mob, screaming whatever curses and war cries at the top of their lungs unaware of the biggest mistakes they were about to commit.

He saw the Dark Elves around him firing a volley of arrows at the attackers, which either missed or pieced into flesh and blood, injuring or killing dozens of raiders in a few second. It only enraged and made the raiders more eager to confront the dark elves. Douglas saw that the elves were outnumbered 3-to-1.

Douglas slightly tilted his head as an arrow flew passed him inches away from him, and just as he was about to aim and reinitiate. Jerome said out his next order straight from the captain. "Engage the hostiles and aid the elves."

The group did not hesitate to aimed their weapons at their own chosen target and unleash death upon them. Douglas chose a large burly man wielding a massive battleaxe, his head within the middle of the BR's crosshair. The spartan then pressed the trigger, followed by a loud bang as a trio of 9.5x40mm round flew straight towards its unlucky victim.

A large bang followed by flesh and bone blowing apart spooked both the dark elves and the raiders. Both sides turned to stare in shock at the biggest one of the raiders having a large hole in his forehead, who then fell down on his front dead as the ground around him. The raiders had no chance to react to the brutal attack as they suddenly found themselves being cut down like a scythe cleaving through the crops.

A symphony of gunfire filled the air with the occasional screams of pain joining in as part of a disturbing orchestra of war, as ODST and Spartans methodically shot every hostiles they saw. Turpin reduced a raider's head into minced meat with a burst of her silenced SMG. Sparks unleashed his sniper rifle's anger upon his enemy as it annihilated heads and chest, spraying blood and bone into the air. The rest of the ODSTs picking out the raiders with a single shot with their MA5Bs, filling the air with repeated cracked sound. The Spartans simply scored one headshot after another as dozens of hostiles found their friends or themselves falling dead with a head missing a huge chunk.

Few minutes into the firefight soon resulted in the over hundred strong raiders reduced to less than several dozen people. And at this stage, several raiders managed to get close to engage themselves in close-combat the elves in hopes of getting some blood spilled in revenge for their fallen brethren or get away with some prizes. Majority of the raiders were killed by the Dark Elves' better combat experience and superior weapons, while few were slain by their human enemies.

One of the younger male dark elves was on the ground as his scimitar was in a blade lock with a short-sword wielding human. The younger dark elf could smell the foul breathing coming out of his stronger opponent's mouth and saw his eyes filled murderous intent. The dark elf felt his strength fleeing from his body as the enemy sword was coming near his chest. Terrified, the young dark elf tried to call for help, but saw the rest of his kind was busy fighting off the others or too far away to help.

He then saw a green blur past his eye and saw one of those green giants suddenly standing next to his opponent. The giant kicked the raider in the guts so fast that the elf could only see a blur and the raider flying through the air until he impacted a tree with a sickening crunch. The speed which giant came to his aid was astonishing, he saw the giant was dozens of meters away from its group and somehow came to his aid over the long distance in a matter of seconds. Only an Apostle could move at those speeds.

The dark elf noticed that the giant was giving out his hand to help him. Shaking himself out of the display he saw earlier, he took the giant's hand who helped him get back to his feet. Before the giant could go away, the elf managed to say some few words to him. "T-thanks for the help." He thanked him, staring nervously at the giant's large height and intimidating green armour; He also saw the inscription "130" painted on the giant's left breast plate. He wondered what those words were supposed to tell or represent. The giant merely nodded his head and went back to the fight.

It was then he heard a large whooshing and thundering sound that swept through the sky. At first he thought it was a dragon or a flying beast flying over here to feast upon them or going on its general rampage, but when the shadows came over him and looked up to see the 'dragon' he saw it was something else.

The flying beast above him was larger than the common dragons used by the empire and their vassal states. Instead of scales he saw the strange beast was covered entirely in dark green metal and it's incredibly short wings were emitting some blue flames. He saw the nose of the dragon looking to the direction of the raiders and suddenly sending out small and extremely fast fireballs at the remaining enemies, sending out clouds of dirt that masked their gruesome demise.

The battle was over.

He looked on in mixture of shock and awe at how the newcomers quickly wiped out most of the raiders, along with the strange beast that entered and aided them with its mighty rapid fireballs it breathed from its nose. Nacuo Ha Isru wondered if these newcomers were the ones the Empire and the vassal kingdoms fought against at Alnus Hill where the gate appeared. But one thing for certain, Nacuo knew his people have gained a powerful new ally today. One that could perhaps change the order of things in Falmart.

Jerome saw Quebec 204 hovering nearby their position, her pelican's 70mm nose gun searching through the forest for any stragglers or new foes to lay waste to. He approached one of the intact corpses of the raider and saw it was definitely human. Which raised even more questions of where they were in the galaxy and how were humans and what amounts to be a fictional fantasy race existing in this world they were orbiting above. Chances of humans separately evolving was nigh impossible, so the only theories the Spartan could think of was an alternative dimension or a colony ship sent during the colonization period during the early years of humanity's expansion into the stars.

Jerome shook out those thoughts out of his head, leave the thinking and theorizing to the Captain, Professor Anders, and Serina. They would figure this out eventually and get them back to UNSC space.

Jerome looked to his right to see the Dark Elves and few of the ODST gathering the bodies of the dead raiders to pile them together for disposal. The dark elf corpses were put onto stretchers and covered in blankets which he presumed it was for protection until proper burial could commence. He also saw them looking at his fellow Spartans, ODSTs, and the Pelican with fearful, wary, and awestruck expression; Which wasn't surprising considering their level of technology, but receiving these looks for saving them? Despite the looks they received when saved civilians or fellow soldiers, which didn't bothered the Spartans very much, but receiving them from what amounts to be a non-human specie was quite the first.

Jerome then contacted the captain with a personal and secure COM channel. "Sir, hostile human raiders eliminated sir. No casualties on us, but the dark elves have several casualties, both dead and wounded." He paused for a moment before continuing on his report. "Sir, I also believed we might have gotten some goodwill from these people when we helped them fend off the raiders. This might prove useful for gathering intelligence on this world and for any potential friends and foes."

"Well done Jerome, you and the team just made our lives a bit easier. Try and make further contact with the nearest dark elf settlement for additional intel. Also Quebec 204 discovered an ideal spot for our new firebase, near the forest you're in, you'll have additional reinforcement in around a hour or so." Cutter replied. "Also, try to get their leaders in the negotiation table with us in the near future, we're going to need a lot of help to know what this place is." Cutter gave out his newest order.

In low orbit above the unknown planet, a D20 Heron attached with a firebase module flew away from the modified colony ship escorted by a pair of GA-TL1 C712 model Longsword fighters and several pelican dropships down to the surface where the UNSC would establish their presence to the world below. As this was going on a small communication satellite and and scanning satellites were deployed from the ship to give better communications for future UNSC forces operations along with seeing the planet at a more intimate level. And discovering something that would bring interesting times ahead.

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 **The Spirit of Fire begins to establish base of operation on Falmart and made contact with the Dark Elves, and aiding them from some raider attack. This allows the UNSC to make a first peaceful contact with a race that isn't the Covenant or wants to eat or kill them.**

 **Oh we'll see that young Dark Elf again in the future.**

 **Please Read and Review!**


	4. Sorting Through the Closet

**08:10 Hours, March 28, 2536 (UNSC Military Calendar)**

 **Orbit above unknown world, UNSC** ** _Spirit of Fire_**

The inside of the immense cargo hold of the Spirit of Fire, stretching from one side of the ship to another, was filled with over a battalion worth of naval and logistical personnel working through the ship's remaining supplies and assets. Cyclops, munition loaders, and cranes were moving around supply crates as the crew were busy making preparations for the UNSC's ground deployment.

Various modules such as barracks, reactors, supply pads, generators, and others were being prepped for their deployment as more herons were brought online. Plans were being made to manufacture new equipment when the assemblers onboard were back running at 100% to replace equipment losses from previous battles. At the barracks and vehicle bays, ground personnel were gearing up as ground vehicles were rearmed, refueled, and checked over for mechanical issues.

The marines of the Marine 45th regiment, the remaining ODSTs of the 9th Shock Trooper battalion, the Army 16th Armoured battalion and the Army 23rd Recon Company were given orders to gear up in case of the ground forces would need extra support below. The attitude amongst the troops was one of caution. The experienced veterans of the Spirit didn't care for honor, they had their fair share during the harvest campaign. No, the soldiers were more concerned if they would be able to make it back to UNSC space.

Naval logistic officer Lieutenant Commander Odang Qiu was marching through the cargo bay of the ship with a datapad on one hand, while using the other to direct various personnel where to put supplies. The tall 5'9 ft African-Chinese descent naval officer was given the arduous task of organising the logistical effort of the Spirit of Fire's groundside operation. Not only did he have to manage ammunition and fuel, but also replacement parts, food, water, and everything ground forces would need on their deployment.

"I want those Darters filled up to the brim! They launch in 30 minutes! C'mon people, we have a base to build!" He yelled out.

Qiu looked down again to his datapad to see reports coming from the engineers inspecting the vehicles aboard the ship, each of them reporting the upgrades Serina made to the vehicles.

' _Well, the redesigned Cyclopes S-models are much faster, easier to operate and mount heavy weapons. But, all that extra weight means that their strength is a lot less than the unmodified B-Models…_ ' Qiu thought to himself as he read through the reports. ' _And the Cyclopes aren't the only ones to get the treatment, most of the scorpions are upgraded as well. Serina has been busy…'_

Apparently besides the vehicle upgrades, Serina had worked on weaponizing the UNSC's cryotechnology. She had even created design templates for vehicles fitted with the new cryo-weapons. They could probably test out the new designs in the field, but that would mean spending time manufacturing prototypes and now wasn't the time to be testing out new tech.

"Hey, Hey! Don't load those! Those are for the next shipment! Put them on the lift." Qui yelled, pointing at a couple of deckhands loading crates onto a Darter.

Meanwhile at the barracks of the Marine 45th regiment, Colonel Mun Jun-Yeong marched down the barracks where rows of marines in full combat kit were standing in attention.

"Marines! I know we've been through hell, from Covie bastards, alien robots inside a planet to ugly-ass zombie mother-fuckers! Now we're above some god forsaken world in the ass end of nowhere, the Captain thinks this is our way home. This is where we come in marines, we know there are people down there, some friendly some hostile. We'll be going down the planet to keep our eggheads safe while they figure out how to get us home. DO YOU HEAR ME MARINES?"

"SIR YES SIR!"

"We're going to show the enemy the strength of a grade-A UNSC marine and kick their ass so hard that their grandchildren will shit themselves with the mention of the UNSC Marine Corps. Are you with me marines?" He yelled.

"Sir yes sir!" The marines cried out.

"Oohrah, marines." The korean descent colonel said.

"Oohrah!" The marines yelled out their signature cry.

"That's the spirit. Dismissed!" The colonel said with pride. Despite the loss in morale and heavy casualties from previous battle, the 45th marine regiment were still proud and willing to do their duty to the UNSC and humanity.

At the bridge of the ship Captain Cutter, Professor Anders, and Serina were discussing the data they received from ground team. The idea that a fantasy race from human media could exist in this world was astonishing, but what was more surprising was the existence of humans at this world. Despite it being a physically impossibility for humans to evolve separately across a vast distance of space, they still somehow existed here. How a separate branch of humans exist on this mysterious world was very shocking, and could only be explained by crackpot theories. Perhaps these humans were the result of a long lost colony ship, or perhaps the Spirit had somehow slipped into another reality…

"Have we got anything on the mysterious radiation?" Cutter asked.

"Well the radiation seems to be emitted by the planet and has saturated the natural environment, the forest Red-Team is in seems to contain a higher than normal concentration. Also the radiation seems to be largely concentrated in vein-like structures all over the planet." Anders reported.

"Veins? Is this emitted by some sort of rock?"

"There appear to be hundreds of these veins littered all over the surface of the planet." Anders informed the captain, bring up a holo-image of the planet with various highlighted lines crisscrossing the surface like snakes. "The veins are the primary source of the radiation. Any trace of the outside of the veins is barely picked up due to background radiation and the planet's magnetosphere. The forest Red-Team landed in is right above one of these veins."

Cutter touched his chin from the explanation he heard, processing what it could mean for his crew and the ship.

"Does the energy have any effects on personnel?" Cutter asked Serina.

"None Captain, none of the ground forces have noticed any ill effects. But it may be too soon to judge."

"Is it possible for us to use this energy to find a way back home, professor?" He asked turning to face Anders.

"Right before we were dragged above this world I detected a massive burst of this mystery radiation. So it's very likely that we may be able to use this radiation to return back to UNSC space." Serina cut in.

"The problem would be generating the enormous amount of this radiation. We're not sure how much power it would take, but definitely more than the Spirit's fusion reactors can put out."

"Thank you." Cutter said as he moved to their next topic. The local race they encountered on the surface.

"The Dark Elves." Cutter muttered. "Since the ground team helped them out with the raiders, I think we might have earned their good will. Though if we want to know more about this world and establish peaceful relation among the natives to make sure our operation go smoothly as possible. Also since this is our first, first-contact scenario with a new race besides the Covenant, the UNSC can't afford to have bad relations."

The Dark Elves represented the UNSC's potential first peaceful first contact with another race, and Cutter was damned if he and the crew messed that up. Though Cutter knew the connection came at a cost, namely the human raiders than the recon team had slaughtered. The raiders had attacked Red-Team and had refused to stand down. All those years of fighting the Covenant made him slightly uncomfortable taking another human life, but he steeling himself thinking of his time fighting against the insurrection. ' _They're just another group of terrorists_ ' he reminded himself…

Cutter then decided to check on the status of the firebase established on the surface. "Serina, what's the status of firebase Alpha?"

"Firebase has been established and supply pad modules are deployed. Marine platoons are now protecting the base perimeter. The other base modules and Darters are coming in around the next 30 minutes." Serina reported.

"Excellent, anything else?" Cutter asked.

"Captain, I'm detecting a weak radio signal down at the planet. It's not one of ours or and doesn't match UNSC or known insurrection comms protocols." She reported, focusing the halo-table on place a hundred km to their north. "The signal is extremely weak and the encryption scheme is ancient, heavily outdated by UNSC standards." She observed.

"Amplify the signal, find what it is about Serina." Cutter ordered, gripping the holo-table harder in reaction to what maybe a good news. If his hunch was right, it might be a colony ship that could've brought humans to this world, a colony ship with a slip space drive…

 _'_ _Odd; this encryption scheme isn't on any of our standard databases. Accessing historical archives... done. Partial match found for old Earth Japanese Self-Defense Forces, late 20th to early 21st century.'_ Serina thought as she matched the radio signal she heard with the one from Spirit's historical archives.

"Captain, I managed to decode the signal's message… You won't believe what I'm about to tell you sir." She said with a confused expression. "It's late 20th century in origin. 1990s-style NATO encryption…" She declared.

"21st century? NATO? That's around 500 years outdated, how and why is there here?" Anders asked with a puzzled tone.

"Well you won't believe when you hear this." Serina announced, playing the message of the unknown radio signal, which was shockingly in Japanese.

 **"** **Teisatsu chīmu o haken shite,-mon no mawari no chiiki o chōsei shi, kono sekai no jōhō o shūshū shi, kokoro ni katsu yō ni shimashou…"**

Cutter and Anders listened to the audio of the signal, contemplating what the signal represented for them. What they heard was undeniably Japanese but somehow played in 21st century radio signal. Something was off.

"Serina, can you translate?" Cutter asked, knowing what the answer was.

" _Dispatch recon teams to recon the area around the gate, gather intel on this world, and make sure we win the hearts…_ "the translated message plays in English.

"Can you check the historical databases to find out what nation sent this message?" Cutter asked.

"The encryption scheme matches the Japanese Self-Defense Force or JSDF. Which was the military of the Japan prior to the creation of the United Earth Government." Anders answered looking up from a data pad.

"Thank you professor. How is it that we're hearing them in this world? Are they stranded here?" Cutter questioned.

"Based on additional radio signals I managed to listen to. It seems to appear a mysterious gate structure appeared in Ginza, Japan, where a large army of romans and various fantasy beings attacked the city before they were repelled by the JSDF." Serina reported.

There was silence on the bridge, even the bridge crew were glancing at their direction in reaction to what Serina reported. It sounded completely ludicrous. A gate opening up in Japan and bunch of romans and fantasy race attacking from it? That sounded like some corny old sci-fi anime plot!

"What." The only thing Anders and Cutter could say.

 **Sorry for the long wait for the chapter, between working on new stories and school work, didn't have much time posting new chapters here.**


	5. Dark Elves and Spartans

**08:35 Hours, March 28, 2536 (UNSC Military Calendar)**

 **Surface of unknown planet, Schwarz Forest**

Sunray 1-1, Red team, and the remaining dark elves travelled through the forest to the village the dark elves were living at. The UNSC group notice the dark elves were giving a large distance between them, not being too close to them nor too far apart. Several individuals glance to their direction, their expression mixed with curiosity, awe, and fear, while other elve's facial expression was more harder to discern.

It seems the skirmish with the raiders left a lasting impression of them to the Dark Elves.

Though one of them seem to be hanging closer to the UNSC group but putting enough distance he wasn't too far from his kind. It was the young Dark Elf whom Alice saved, who seems to have developed an curiousity towards them. However the ODSTs and Spartans ignored the attention and focused on their current situation. They were being brought to the Dark Elves village to be brought before their leaders for an audience, a job neither the ODST or Spartans were exactly prepared for but something they'll have to improvise.

Eventually they arrived in front of a village protect by wooden walls. The sentries on the wall saw them approaching and asked their brethren who the strangers with them were to which the group leader replied. "They're not our foe, they'll here to see audience with the elders."

"Are you sure they're not tricking you?" A sentry questioned.

"They aided us in fending off a raider attack. Without their help, most of us wouldn't have made it home today." The leader declared. "They're strangers in this land who want to seek help."

Deciding to trust in the dark elf's judgement and reason, the sentries ordered the gate to open up to allow them in.

Inside the village were variety of buildings and dozens of Dark Elves milling around. The UNSC group saw shops selling different types of goods to approaching buyers, what appeared to be a blacksmith at work based off the metals clanging, and at the center of the village appeared to be some kind of temple. The buildings were made out of some sort of bricks and the tilted roofs made from slate. Besides the structures, they saw Dark Elves of all age group stopped doing whatever they were doing to stare at them. The ODST and Spartans could see in villagers' eyes filled with awe, curiosity, anxiousness, and fear at their armoured appearance, particularly the Spartans.

The group then stopped in front of what appeared to the building housing their village leader or leaders. The dark elf wearing the worn-out green cape entered the building through a simple cloth hanging off the top. After few minute or so he came back out to inform the group outside the building.

"The elders decided to grant you audience with them, but they want you two–" He pointed towards Vaughan and Jerome. "– To come inside. The rest of you stay outside."

Vaughan and Jerome looked to one another, communicating if going along together was a good idea. But it was decided that in order to learn more about them and earn their trust, they had to listen to their instructions for the time being. Even then if things went sour, they still had the upper hand.

Entering the building, Vaughan and Spartan noticed the interior was rather empty of any decoration or furniture, and the only thing inside was a large intricately designed carpet woven with various shapes and imagery of nature, and on the carpet were five elderly-looking dark elves - three male and two female - sitting in a semi-circular on large purple cushions.

"So… You're the warriors who saved our kin from raiders." One of the male elder observed. "Ivern wasn't exaggerating when he described your armour."

"Never seen such craftsmanship, it exceeds the finest armour the dwarves ever forged." A female elder with brown hair whispered.

"Tell us strangers of your tale, you claim to be lost and seek some ally with us. Why?" A male elder with white hair asked.

Clearing out his voice and making sure the translator was functioning properly, Vaughan answered to the elders. "Our ship, my people, is stranded in this land without any knowledge about it or where we're at. My captain wishes to know more about the land we're in so we could find a way back home." Vaughan explained their basic situation.

"Ship? You people must have come a long way to here considering this location is very far from the sea. Though I'm curious to which why you didn't asked Elbe for help." The white haired elder spoke.

"Elbe?" Vaughan questioned, paying attention to upcoming information.

"Why the Kingdom of Elbe, the Schwarz forest we're in lies at their northern tip of Tybe mountain, the edge their borders." He answered. "Though I'm still curious to how far you people made it here without meeting the Elbians. Arriving here from the nearest coast is a long journey." The elder remarked.

"Our vessel… Isn't what you would expect of a normal ship." Vaughan vaguely stated. "And we had other mode of transportation with us."

"Does this relates to the giant metal bird Ivern spoke about?"

"Yes, but we're getting off topic here."

This was when Jerome took his turn to speak out. "Elders, can you tell us more about the kingdom of Elbe?" He asked.

One of the female elder with blonde hair stroked her chin as she answered. "Elbe is the kingdom ruling these lands and is ruled by King Duran, at least before his rumored demise at Alnus Hill. However, the kingdom is nothing but a vassal to the Empire."

"The Empire?" Jerome and Vaughan asked simultaneously.

"The Empire…" A blond haired elder spoke venomously. "Is the supreme power that rules the land beyond Elbe and all of the continent of Falmart. So large and powerful that Elbe and other kingdoms swore loyalty to it as vassal states, either in fear or awe of the Empire."

"Their capital and ruler? The size of their army?" Jerome questioned.

"Sadera city is their seat of power ruled by Emperor Molt Sol Augustus, with command over 100,000 strong armies." The same male elder answered. Jerome wasn't sure if the numbers were being exaggerated but it did somewhat provided intel of the empire's numbers. "The Empire ruthlessly destroy any opposition to their rule or path to glory, they committed genocide and enslaved countless species, humans or demihumans. Though they seemed to have encountered a severe humiliation on Alnus hill at the gate.

"Gate?" Vaughan asked, having a feeling he might have found the answer to why the _Spirit of Fire_ was at this world.

"A mysterious portal that opens periodically on the sacred hill of Alnus, bringing different race from the other side of the gate to settle here. Many of the race living here, including my kind and our light kins entered through the gate thousands of thousands of years ago, with the humans being the recent arrivals by 2000 years ago." The white haired elder explained. "No one exactly knows who or what controls the gate but it's believed by many to be the magical work of the gods."

"Magic?" Jerome inquired.

"You don't know magic? Its widely known all over these lands and is practiced by those able to harness it." The elder looked at them with surprise.

"Let's say our people don't know how to use magic." Jerome replied, taking a mental note of what could be a match between the planet's strange energy and what the locals call "magic".

"Perhaps a demonstration could show what magic looks like" The elder said as fire magically appeared on the palm of hand, surprising the two UNSC personal. Their helmet HUD then showed them a mini-screen which showed the mysterious energy and the magic demonstrated having an exact match with one another.

"Captain, are you seeing this?" Jerome whispered through the COM, assessing the potential threat the elder presented right now and the implication of the manipulation of the mysterious energy he saw.

"I'm seeing it alright." Cutter's stunned voice echoed through the COM.

' _You have to be kidding me! It's one thing to have a fantasy race, but it's another to have freaking magic! What kind of weird-ass place are we in, is this some sort of different universe?'_ Vaughan mind went into frenzy. ' _Though it may not be magic at all if they're manipulating the planet's energy.'_ His mind tried to rationally explain what he saw with mixed results.

Shaking his mind off of the subject to focus on his next question, Vaughan spoke again. "Thank you for the demonstration, elder. Also, how many races are living in these lands here?" He asked the white haired elder.

"I'm not sure of the exact numbers but over several dozen races live here, though the Empire and the vassal states don't take kindly to their presence. We have dark and light elves, warrior bunnies, goblins, ogres, dragons, medusas, sirens, dwarves, werewolves, draconians, and many others."

Taking in the information, Vaughan and Jerome saw this world had many different races living with one another, albeit not in the most peaceful state. Along with knowledge that could provide them with clues to how the _Spirit_ ended up here. If these people knew how to or know someone able to use the mysterious energy or "magic", they could find a way out of this world and get back to UNSC space. Though they would need someone who's very proficient and knowledgeable of "magic" who was willing to aid them.

"One last question, do you know anyone skilled with magic?" The ODST major asked.

"Most of us are able to use spirit magic, but you're better off finding a mage. There's one living near the forest… Though she can be quite distrusting of strangers."

 _'Well this day is getting more interesting.'_ The major thought as he continued to listen to the elder.


	6. Side Story 1: Liberation

**Liberation**

 **09:02 Hours, March 28, 2536 (UNSC Military Calendar)**

 **Surface of unknown planet, 8 miles from Schwarz Forest**

Sergeant Abhi "Seeker" Takasaki of 3rd recon squad of B platoon of the 23rd army recon company rode across a seemingly endless grassy plain with her fireteam on two mongooses. She was leading this 4-man team that included herself, Corporal Matt, Private 1st class Ali, and Private Billson on a recon mission around the surrounding of the recently deployed firebase. The team's weapon loadout was her wielding an M392 DMR, Cpl. Matt equipped with an MA5B with a 3x scope, with the Privates wielding M7 SMGs. Besides the guns, each of them had 2 pairs of frag and smoke grenades if the situation needed them.

Takasaki was enjoying the pleasure of breathing the fresh rejuvenating air and feeling it run through her hair. After spending months breathing the stale recycled air of the ship, she was glad that her squad was one of the lucky ones to get off the ship to the surface of this world. She was Army, dirt was where she belonged. Where she fought and where she would one day be buried. Not dying in the in the cold empty expanse of space or at some strange alien planet with those freakish alien zombies and advanced robots. She signed up to prevent the innies from terrorizing the colonies, not to fight against an alien hegemony bent on humanity's extinction, and certainly not to land on some fantasy world if the rumors back on the ship was true. It seems like life just keeps on flinging weird stuff at them.

"Hey Sarge, I'm seeing smoke ahead." Her rear passenger, Billson, pointed out to where a small column of smoke could be seen up ahead of their current position.

Smoke implied that there was company nearby, either someone was making a fire or an attack was underway. Even if the smoke didn't imply anything hostile to the UNSC, they needed to check if it would pose a threat in the future due to its relative closeness to the base.

Takasaki called to her CO through a private COM. "Sir, this is Seeker reporting. My team just sighted smoke coming from our 12, estimated distance around half a click. Permission to investigate?"

"Granted, don't try and get any attention toward us. The firebase hasn't been fully prepped."

"Yes sir." The sergeant replied. "Alright boys, we're moving towards the smoke to what's going on. If it's nothing, then we leave it alone. But if it's something unfriendly, pump them with lead." She announces, pulling the throttle of the mongoose to put it to a full stop.

The army sergeant gets off the ATV, bringing out her DMR from her back. She ejects the magazine to briefly inspect it before putting it back in the rifle, then cocks the bolt to put a round in the firing chamber. She glance to her rear to see her team getting off their ride and taking out their weapon, fully prepared for whatever they were going to face.

"Alright dirt foots, I'll be taking lead position. Matt, cover my six. Ali and Billson, cover our flank. We're going in slow and steady. And engage when attacked upon, understood."

"Yes sarge." All three answered.

"Ok, let's finish this before it's high noon." The Japanese-Indian said before marching forward across the green plain where the smoke was coming from and the team following behind their NCO.

After several minutes of walking the recon team reached a ridge and beyond it the smoke seemed to grow a larger, along with the team able to smelling an unpleasant scent. They heard multiple screams along with laughter, and crying.

"You hearing that?" Ali asked.

"Hear it alright. Sounds like they're having the time of their life over there." Matt said, feeling he was going to throw out his breakfast soon for some reason.

"Get down on the ground, crawl towards the edge." Takasaki ordered.

The team got down to the ground on their stomachs and slowly made their way to the edge of the ridge to see the smoke origin, unaware of what they were about to see.

Reaching the top the team looked down to see a large campfire surrounded by dozens of humans, all of them clad in leather and some armor wielding extremely primitive melee weapons, celebrating something as they ate delicious looking meat, drinking some kind of beverage, and goofing around. But the team noticed some were… Having their way with few screaming woman.

Anger boiled behind the eyes of each individual of the recon team at seeing such horrific, barbarous act that only the worst of society would commit. Soon enough that anger would reach a unparalleled level when Pvt. Billson spotted something else.

"Sarge, you see that over there." Billson whispered barely able to contain his fury, while he pointed to another part of the encampment.

"What is it, I don't know what can be worse than thi- Oh." The middle-aged sergeant slightly gasped.

Not far from the campfire several meters to the left was large pair of wagons, each attached to horse pair strong enough to carrying a large load yet able to run as if it didn't existed. However the cargo of the wagon was something else to see. Around the wagon was wooden bars that served as a cage bar, imprisoning the helpless people trapped inside. They saw women, children, men, along with some apparent hybrid of human and animals.

"Are those… Cat ears?" Takasaki was flabbergasted by one of the woman having literal cat ears like the old anime he used to watch. The surprising sight momentarily overtook his hatred for slavery and slavers.

"I see one of them have bunny ears. The others have horns, wings, and other traits." Ali noted. "Would've been interesting sight if they weren't being enslaved." He spat out.

"Freaking slavers, the only thing they need is some good old bullet to the face." Matt whispered, his finger dangerously close to the trigger of his scoped MA5B. "M'am, give me the word and I'll have them dead before they what hit them."

"Corporal remember what I said what would happen if we found where the smoke came from?" The sergeant asked.

"I remember." Matt replied, fully raising his rifle to aim.

"Well in this case, screw it. I'm not leaving the bastards with those slaves, but don't fire yet. Fire after my first shot on their bigshot." The Indian-Japanese female raised her DMR and settled in a comfortable prone position to fire. She put her right eye into the EVOS-D optic, going into 3x magnification and pointed the target reticle to each of the slavers to see which one looked like the leader. She narrowed down her search to the biggest man of the bunch, who's muscle was the size of a tree trunk and looked like it was molded from a marble sculpture. The big guy was dressed in leather shirt and pants with a battered armour protecting his chest. Right now the guy was eating what appeared to be a chicken leg while drowning himself with some alcoholic beverage.

She steadied her rifle as the target reticle rested still on the center of slaver leader's head. She breathed deep and out to steady her concentration on her target, then pulled down the trigger. A small, barely noticeable recoil greeted her shoulder as the DMR shot out 7.62mm round at high velocity at its newest target.

* * *

 _At the Slaver Encampment_

Noya Ayano, a 28-year old Japanese woman, was living through hell right now. Few months ago, she was in Ginza visiting her parents when suddenly Romans, dragons and monsters appeared out of nowhere from a gate that appeared in the city, killing and enslaving anybody in their path. She was unfortunately one of the people captured by the invaders and taken away back through the gate. From there she was reduced to nothing but a slave, alone in a cruel world where she was nothing but a property.

She was subjected to constant fear and abuse as she was put into auction to wherever place she was at, terrified that she was to be sold and sent to work somewhere horrible… Or be someone's own personal toy. Thankfully, she managed to avoid being sold but she knew her time was running short. Sooner or later she'll be bought by someone, just like everybody else in the wagon with her. If she wasn't in this situation, she would've been fascinated to actually see things from anime and fantasy shows like cat girls and winged humanoids in real life. But with her current situation she had no time to become fascinated, only worry about her surviving similar to all the others in the wagon.

 **BANG!**

She heard the familiar sound of gunfire followed by the sound of blood and bone exploding. She looked forward to see the lead slaver, a man with a huge build and with a depraved personality, spotting a large hole in the center of his head. He then silent fell down with a thud as blood flowed from his bloody hole. All the slavers were up on their feet, terrified and panicking of what happened to their boss, they were screaming to one another or to the skies in their unintelligible language.

She then heard additional gunshots that killed each slavers one by one, each of them dead with fear and confusion plastered on their face. Soon enough the entire band of slavers was gone. The people in the caged wagon were whimpering in fear and horrified silent at what had occurred now. Their tormentors were suddenly cut down like a scythe going through a wheat field by those thunderous noises. They feared that something terrible was coming to them and end up in the hands of another tormenter. However for Ayano, all she heard was the sound of salvation of her people coming to her rescue.

She saw near the ridge, not far from where she and her captives were at, four figures obviously dubbed in military gear pop up from the ground and jog towards them. When they got closer, Ayano noticed the soldiers slightly resembled US army but she noticed that their gear looked much more armoured and advanced than the ones she saw in real-life and on TV, even their weapons didn't matched their standard weapons. It seemed the US equipped their new soldiers with some new gear.

The four soldiers came to the campsite and immediately checked the bodies to see if they were alive or dead. Seeing that the bodies made no response to show they were alive, the soldiers went over to them to see to their safety. One of them went over to the unfortunate ones who lost their dignity lying on the ground, the arabic looking man tried nudging the raped woman but all he was greeted was a unresponsive silence. The other three went over to the wagons and broke down the locks of the wooden cage, allowing the captives to be free. The slaves at first were afraid and confused by the gesture, unable to believe that they were being set free and the strangers not enslaving them.

However a male warrior bunny, standing around 5'6 ft tall with a skinny figure and a short brown hair, jumped out of the wagon to the ground then gestered others to come out. The others then followed his lead and slowly got out of the cage to freedom. Ayano was the second one to come out and immediately ran towards the closet soldier and hugged him before he could react.

" _Thank you, thank you for freeing me! I knew you would come to my rescue ever since I was kidnapped by those barbarians!_ " She cried out in Japanese.

' _What the hell? She's speaking Japanese!? How can someone here speak it? Though she does appear to look Japanese compared to others here right now_.' Billson thought trying to get the woman off of him. "M'am, calm down. We're get you help soon." He then turned to Takasaki. "Hey sarge, we have one speaking japanese here, I don't understand what she's saying but I think you will."

"Coming Billson." The female sergeant called back as he ran towards Billson and Ayano.

" _M'am, my name is sergeant Abhi Takasaki of the UNSC army. Do not worry you're in safe hands._ " The Indian-Japanese female reassured the frightened woman.

" _The UN? That's even better! Besides Japan and the US, we'll have countless countries going through the gate and blast those savages to dust!_ " She proclaimed.

' _UN? Japan, US, and countries? The heck is the woman talking about? The countries she mentioned are literally non-existent except as administrative zones._ ' Takasaki thought to himself, confused to what nonsense the woman was talking about.

But for some reason his guts told him that had interesting times were about to come.


	7. Meet the Violet Sorcerer

**Sorry folks for the long wait, I finally updated the latest chapter of my story. The delay was thanks to me preparing for college and going into the orientation of my new college in the US, and working on my other story. I'll have to inform you that my updating schedule will be confusing due to me going to my first year of college which could give me little time to work on my story.**

* * *

 **09:14 Hours, March 28, 2536 (UNSC Military Calendar)**

 **Surface of unknown planet, southwest of Schwarz Forest**

"We're here folks." Vaughan announced, stepping off the troop hog with the rest of Sunray 1-1. They had travelled around 5 miles away from the Dark Elf village to near the outskirts of the forest where their VIP was rumored to live at. Thankfully Quebec 204 delivered them a warthog to make their travel go much faster, though they had to initially drop it a considerable distance from the village to prevent a panic.

The Spartans were recalled back by the captain, the ODST team was sufficient enough to find the sorcerer and bring her back, while the Spartans would be assigned to more important missions. Vaughan half-wished that the Spartans were with him, their combat prowess would save them a lot of trouble if they faced anything hostile, along with their intimidating stature making people think twice about attacking them.

Oh well, orders were orders, if the captain needed the Spartans for something else who was he to argue. In the meantime, it was just him and his team on the search for the sorceress. He hoped that she would be cooperative in helping them find a way back home instead of being unwelcoming or hostile towards them. The very possibility was the reason he had his own customized hand-painted mustang rocket launcher with him if things went real hairy.

Let's hope we find her soon." Vaughan heard Turpin muttered as hopped off the 'hog.

"Before we go, Sparks, Quinn. You're on guard duty with the 'hog, make sure our ride isn't busted if our search doesn't go as planned." Vaughan ordered.

"Yes, sir." Sparks and Quinn replied as they set about creating a perimeter around the troop hog.

"Gruss, Turpin, you're with me. Let's move out!"

The three moved through the woods, leaving behind the two ODST and the warthog. They were heading towards a nearby clearing in the forest based on the location description provided by the dark elf elders of where the sorceress lived. They were told that she lived in a hut at the edge of the cliff and was guarded by a dangerous monster - her pet. A sudden desire to test to how dangerous the beast would be when it receiving a 102mm rocket to the face arose inside Vaughan. But his training immediately snuffed out that thought, confrontation with their VIP was not the objective.

Several minutes passed until the group reached the clearing where the sorceress' wooden hut was located. It now lay in front of them, no more than a dozen meters away. The the hut appeared to be only a one-story building with a typical door in the middle with several windows of various size scattered around the building, along with a small chimney top on the roof where smoke could be seen escaping. Overall the hut's appearance made it look rather cozy.

"Think she's at home?" Turpin asked.

"Don't know, but it's likely." Gruss replied.

"Even with the smoke coming out of the chimney top, can't exactly say for sure." Vaughan observed.

"Sooo, who's the unlucky one going up to the door and knocking on it?" Gruss asked.

"We should be more worried about whatever defences she could've laid around. Considering she' some kind of magician or some such, she has no doubt placed countermeasures against intruders. Which would mean us." Turpin said as she looked around her surrounding for anything suspicious, suddenly gaining an expression of weariness. "And knowing my luck, I probably just jinxed us."

Suddenly as if the world had heard Turpin, and decided to screw with her, a mighty roar erupted from the group's rear, startling them into bringing their weapons up in preparation for a battle. The thick bushes in to the left of them rustled before something large jumped out of them and over the ODSTs, landing between them and the house.

The ODSTs hurriedly turned around to face it. The beast was around the size of a warthog. It appeared to be similar to a dinosaur, more specifically a ceratopsidae. The dinosaur-looking creature was heavily built with a bulky body, looking powerful enough that it could charge and flip an APC on its side. The head of the dinosaur had a pair of small horn protruding near its nose and beak, and on the frill of the head were two foot-long horns allowing the monster to deal mortal blows with a swing of its head.

The ODST were momentarily surprised by the appearance of the dinosaur, never expecting such a familiar creature instead of a more… mythological being.

"Sir, are you seeing what I'm seeing." Turpin whispered.

"The dinosaur in front of me? Then yes, Turpin." Vaughan replied back.

"Interesting, never seen a ceratopsidae like that in any of the holobooks." Gruss observed in fascination, momentarily forgetting the potential danger they were in.

"Hey Gruss, you can fangirl about it when this is over." Turpin snapped out.

"Calm down!" Vaughan ordered. "Just stand your ground and don't make any move that'll piss it off."

The ODSTs stood still, gripping their weapon and sweating from the heavy tension between them and the dinosaur creature. They weren't exactly sure what the dinosaur in front of them was capable of, but they could infer from the lack of attacking that it was the sorceress' "pet." As long as they didn't make any wrong moves they should be okay.

The dinosaur in front of them was puffing and stomping its head in an act of dominance, while scraping the dirt with one of its front leg like a bull preparing to charge to intimidate the ODSTs. It kept on putting up an aggressive display to push the intruders out of its territory and the house, while the ODST stood their ground, neither side willing to bulge from their position.

The ceratopsidae dinosaur seemed to run out of patients as it let out an ear-burst bellow and lowered its head so that its horned frill was facing forward, preparing to charge and eliminate the intruders. In response the ODSTs clicked off the safeties of their weapon with Vaughan took out his rocket launcher to blow the dinosaur to chunky bits.

"Cera, stop!" A feminine commanding voice shouted out, causing the dinosaur to halt.

Vaughan turned around, while his squad mates kept their weapons trained on the dinosaur, to see a woman who appeared to be in her late-20s coming out of the bush from their rear. She was around 5'11 ft tall with a lean body shape, along with a gothic look. She had a sharp face with a long black-purplish hair reaching down to her shoulders and her brown eyes were surrounded by black markings. The outfit she was wearing appeared to be composed of a dark dress that looked like it favored both aesthetic while not sacrificing mobility, she had pair of long purple gloves reaching up to her elbow, dark boots nearly reaching her knees and over her outfit was black cloak where the exterior was decorated to with what appeared to be feathers. Besides her outfit, she held a wooden staff with a purplish crystal resting on top, surrounded by a pair of blades.

"Who are you people and why are you near my home? Speak before I let Cera resume what she was about to do." The woman looked at the ODSTs with disdain, annoyed by the intruders who were near her home.

Vaughan quickly spoke up. "My name is Major Vaughan of team Sunrary 1-1. The people here with me is my teammates Gruss and Turpin." He paused and continued speaking. "We're here to seek your assistance, the dark elves told us you could provide the help we need."

"My help? Why, that's the most interesting request I've heard in recent memory, considering that nobody has asked for my help in a long while." She chuckled. "But why?" Her mood quickly became suspicious. "For all I know, this could be a trick to apprehend and kill me." She and her pet snarled in tandem.

' _Damn, better say something good before this gets hot fast!_ ' Vaughan thought to himself. He put down his weapon and put his hands slightly up to show he didn't mean any harm.

"We're not here to capture or kill you. My people are lost and far from home due to an unknown magic causing us to appear in these lands we know little of. The Dark Elves told us you would be of aid with your vast knowledge and skill in magic." Vaughan said, hoping the explanation and flattery would placate her.

Raising an eyebrow, the sorceress replied. "You're not from these lands and were brought here by magic? How curious."

"Yes, we're not from these lands. We need any help we can get to get back home, the rest of our people back home are at war, it is very urgent that we return." Vaughan partially told and pleaded to the sorceress.

Turpin and Gruss looked at Vaughan in confusion and annoyance that he had to reveal such a classified detail that they were fighting a war to convince her. But they didn't protest, no use showing dissension in the group in front of a potential enemy.

"… So, you need my help in order to get back home, is that correct?" She questioned after a short pause, seemly more interested than before. "All because of a war your people are fighting?"

"Yes, we need your magical powers or something to help us find a way back home." Vaughan replied.

There was silence between the ODST and the sorceress and her pet that seem to last for an eternity before she spoke once more.

"I'll consider it." She replied. "But it better not be a trick or else I'll have Cera finish her job." She warned as Cera.

"Thank you." He professed his relief. "Say, what's your name?" Vaughan asked after a moment.

"Irisa, Irisa La Krystallo." She replied.

"Thank you, we'll bring you to our ride, from there we're to take you to our camp where our leader can speak to you of the full situation." Vaughan explained. "Though I'm not sure about your… pet." He pointed to the dinosaur.

"Unfortunately, Cera doesn't like to be alone for long periods of time and if I have to be with you people for an unknown amount of time she could get rather moody." Irisa explained, slightly glancing to Cera.

"Great, how are we supposed to explain to the captain. 'Hey captain we found the VIP, but we also brought her pet dinosaur because it will go bananas if she's away from the owner longer than a minute'." Turpin muttered under her breath, as the group and the sorceress along with her pet made their way to where the warthog was located.

"So, what weird or crazy stuff do you expect to see?" Sparks asked Quinn as he calibrate his sniper rifle scope.

"Well since we might have a sorceress with us, I think we should expect to see a dragon in the future." Quinn remarked. "If I were to die right now, the last sight I want to see before I die is a real-life fire-breathing dragon. Granted if it's not trying to kill me or anything." He admitted.

"A Dragon? So, something like Smaug, Toothless or Draco."

"The heck is Smaug, Toothless and Draco?" Quinn asked in confusion to the names Sparks uttered.

"21st century pop culture, not surprised that many people haven't heard of them since they're nearly 5 centuries old. The only reason I know it because I happen to be into 21st century classics." Sparks admitted.

"Huh, never knew you were into that." Quinn remarked. "What about you? What do you expect to see next?"

"Hmmm, cat girls, bunny woman, and fox girls." Sparks sheepishly said out his thought.

"… Really?" Quinn said with exasperation laced in her voice.

"Blame my favorite anime and comics for that." He retorted.

Silence descend between the two as they stood around troop hog, guarding the vehicle. It had been around nearly fifteen minutes since the other members of their team went to find their VIP, so far they hadn't got any word or sign of them returning. Then suddenly the ground beneath them shook, followed by a roar coming from the forest, causing the ODSTs to become alert in the face of possible danger.

"Looks like something big is coming our way." Quinn whispered, aiming her M7S to where the roar originated from.

The thudding of footfalls became stronger and closer every second, making Quinn and Sparks tense with anticipation. Until suddenly out of the trees and bushes came a large quadruple beast with a large horned frill head and a scaly body.

"Do you see what I'm seeing." Quinn said in shock.

"A dinosaur in front of us, yeah." A surprised Sparks replied.

It was a living, breathing dinosaur in front of them, just like in the movies and holobooks. Behind the dinosaur came out the rest of the team, along with a purple-black clad woman in a dress and a cloak holding a staff.

"Whoa, she's a sight to look at." Sparks stared at the female newcomer, only for him to slapped on the back of his helmet.

"We don't need your hormones coming out, Sparks. That's our VIP." Quinn sighed.

"Quinn, Sparks, meet our VIP Irisa La Krystallo. Ms. Krystallo, this is warrant officer Quinn and lance corporal Sparks. The individuals you met before petty officer Gruss and corporal Turpin." The ODST major introduced his team to the sorceress.

"I don't understand when you mean by vee aye pee?" Irisa asked, confusion by the foreign term.

Quinn came to the rescue with her simple explanation. "Our acronym or short term for very important person, which is you in this case."

"This is the first time someone has called me an important person." The sorceress remarked. "And what's that… metal beast over there?" She pointed to the M831 Warthog.

To her, the metal beast looked really bizarre. She couldn't see any limbs on its green body, with wheels in place of where the legs would be located at. Which could mean the metal beast was actually a metal wagon, but then where's the beast of burden that hauled it? Unless they plan on dragging it themselves.

"That's our ride back to our camp." Vaughan said as he got onto the driver seat as the rest of the team mount onto the troop complement, while Irisa looked on with unease and intrigue. "You can sit on the seat next to me here." He pointed towards the empty passenger seat besides the driver seat.

Realizing that she had exactly no choice but to ride the strange metal wagon, Irisa went around the vehicle to the passenger seat and climbed aboard. She was surprised by how incredibly comfortable the seat was compared to that of the standard wooden wagon. The soft feel of the seats caused her to marvel at what it was constructed out of. The strangers must be very rich if they could afford such luxurious padding on a wagon!

The ODSTs looked with amusement at the sorcerer's pleased expression when she sat down on the passenger seat. "Looks like we just won her over with a seat." Gruss remarked.

"Wait until she sleeps on the beds back at base or the ship." Quinn added as the warthog started up.

* * *

 **Irisia La Krystall's appearance is based of Master Cyclonis from Stormhawks, MCU Hela, and Morrigan from Dragon Age.**

 **Cera is based off the Ferrucutus from King Kong 2005.**


	8. Back to Base

**09:33 Hours, March 28, 2536 (UNSC Military Calendar)**

 **Surface of unknown planet, Outskirt of Schwarz Forest**

"What can you tell me about this wagon?" Irisa asked, eager to know more about the self-driving magical wagon she was currently riding on. The speed it travelled at was beyond anything she could imagine for a mere wagon, going much faster than a horse and allowing her to feel the cool wind as it flew past her. So as a follower of La, she was compelled to learn anything she could about the iron wagon.

"Well, the wagon you're riding on is called the M12 Force Application Vehicle or commonly called the 'Warthog' by our people. The one you're riding now is called the M831, also known as a troop hog since these ones are modified to carry additional passengers." Sparks explained. "The speed we're going at right now is not even a fraction of the warthog's true speed, considering we're going slow to allow your pet to catch up." Sparks looked to the left to see Cera keeping up with the warthog at a steady pace. "These can actually go twice the speed of a galloping horse." Vaughan explained.

"Amazing! How do you people make this driverless wagon move?"

"It's rather simple, we use water to fuel this thing. Doesn't matter if the water is clean or dirty."

"Water!? What magic do your people use to make it work!?" Irisia exclaimed, surprising to hear that these people used of all things, used water as some form of power.

"Uhhhhh, that's a bit complicated to explain." Turpin said. "But one thing is that it's not exactly magic that powers the warthog, it'll be explained later in due time."

'Not magic? That's interesting… Maybe working with these people might not be bad after all.' Irisia thought to herself that working with these strangers may reap more benefits than negatives. Though she was confused to why this wagon was called a warthog even if it didn't look like one. Then again, the blades in front sort of made it resemble one but she personally felt like it resembled those big cats she'd heard about from the lands of the far south-east.

She then heard a thundering roar from the skies, bring her head up to see a large winged shape soar across the sky at speeds caused her to nearly lose sight of the shape in the blink of an eye. From the brief observation she had of the things, the winged object was large and metallic like the vehicle she was on, she presumed that these were their aerial mounts or some equivalent contraption.

"What was that!" She yelled out.

Vaughan glance to his side to see the direction of where the UNSC aircraft flew towards. "Looks like one of our birds are is somewhere." He commented th himseld before turning to Irisia to answer. "To answer your question those are UNSC aircraft, more precisely, they appear to be pelicans. Probably delivering a recon team or doing the recon itself."

"Pelicans?"

"Pelicans are our aerial assets, used for variety of purposes like transportation and ground support." Vaughan explained.

"So, they're your equivalent of dragons Elbe and the Empire uses?"

"Uh yeah, sort of like that. Except we manufacture the pelicans by our hand and tools, not breed or born. So essentially think of them as flying boats or something like that." Turpin jumped into the conversation.

"Your people made flying objects?" The sorceress asked, her eyes widening with fascination.

"Yeah, we've been making them for a long time, for over hundreds of years." Turpin answered. 'Wait until she sees the Spirit of Fire.' Turpin thought.

"Amazing." Irisia whispered.

A few minutes later, the troop hog carrying Sunray 1-1 and the sorceress soon reached a distance where they could see the silhouette of the UNSC firebase. From a few kilometres away the ODSTs could see the main building itself and the prefabricated buildings connected to it, along with few defensive turrets lying around the perimeter. They could see a pair of supply pads where crates could be seen stacked besides it and a darter occupying one of the pads unloading its cargo, a wind/solar generator installed to provide power for the base, an air pad facility for UNSC aircrafts to land for repairs, refuelling, and maintenance, a barracks to house marines and other personals, the field armoury which was a cross between fabrication and machinery shop and finally the vehicle depot where vehicles ranging from mongoose to scorpion tanks were housed.

Overall, the base was well established to help coordinate ground-side operation and house over a battalion worth of marines and vehicles. Meanwhile, Irisia La Krystallo looked in wonderment at the sight of the firebase coming into her view. She'd seen fortress and castles throughout her life but never one like the base like she was currently looking at. The base of the strangers had no walls to protect them! Only bunch of what appeared to be watchtowers. Though as she got closer she noticed that not a single structure was made out of wood but what appeared to be metal or stone; the amount of metal required to construct a large building entirely of iron or steel would be enough to arm and armour several legions worth of men, just how many resources could they have at their disposal to build such a structure?

"Welcome to Firebase Alpha." Vaughan announced before arching their index and middle finger on the side of their helmet.

"This is Major Fredrik Vaughan of Sunray 1-1. Do not shoot the approaching dinosaur, I say again, do not shoot the dinosaur." Vaughan announced through the COM.

Irisia noticed that few of the towers' turret with poles protruding was pointed to Cera, following her movement as she got closer to the strangers' base. And after the major gave out his orders, the towers suddenly pointed to other direction or stopped still. Was this some sort of spell the major used to command structures?

"Hey major, you see that over there?" Quinn asked, her finger pointing to an unusual sight left of the base.

Next to the firebase was several group of people being attended by medics and marines who were giving out medical aid and MRE packs. The former group of people were composed mostly of young woman of various species with few males accompanying them. All of them seemed to look tired, frighten.

"Looks like the others were busy while we were gone." Gruss observed as the warthog made the final stretch of the journey to the base.

"The heck happened? They look like refugees." Sparks commented.

"Don't know what happened but bet we'll get our answer once we're in the base." Quinn concluded.

The warthog came to a stop several meters away from the firebase along with Cera halting in her tracks. The sight of the dinosaur creature drew the attention of UNSC personals outside of the base to as what appeared to be relic of the ancient past of Earth stood in front of them; only a few of the soldiers watched the ODSTs escorting the strangely dressed woman while the majority kept the prehistoric creature in their sight.

She saw the soldiers outside looking at her pet and friend, Cera. She noted that the armour and clothing of the UNSC soldiers around were different compared to the ODSTs as their colors were green contrary to the darker coloring scheme of her escorts, while being less armoured and intimidating in appearance.

She hypothesised that the ODSTs' commanders were wealthy people if they could afford to create wagons and buildings entirely out of steel. Irisia took a deep breath as she entered the structure, it was time to meet the leadership of these people. Hopefully her gamble to assist them would pay off.


	9. Paint them Red

**10:00 Hours, March 28, 2536 (UNSC Military Calendar)**

 **Surface of unknown planet, Southeast of Elbe Kingdom**

Red Team moved across the green, peaceful, southeastern lands of the kingdom of Elbe. They moved swift as the wind on their custom black painted M12 LRV Warthog, Douglas driving the warthog with Alice manning the M41 Vulcan gun and Jerome sitting on the passenger seat as he observed the surrounding around him, looking for any signs of unusual or interesting activities.

Red Team has been on the ground for several minutes after they were dropped off for a mission to the southeast territory of this Elbe kingdom. Their mission was to recon the surrounding area for any signs of beings or places that could be potentially friendly and useful for the Spirit's operation, or hostile enough to pose a future problem. Besides this primary objective, they also had a secondary objective to find suitable locations for establishing future bases when they plan to expand their operations.

"Douglas, a road at our two." Jerome pointed to a dirt road northeast of their position. "We'll easily locate the nearest settlement if we go on the road."

"Got it." Douglas replied as he steered the Warthog to drive on the dirt road, the wheels digging out the dirt as it the vehicle pushed with its might. The drive became smoother now the vehicle was on a road.

For the next few minutes, the warthog continued on a dirt road that never seemed to end passing by large fields of grass and scattered groups of trees. Nothing of particular interest came into their view.

During the drive, Douglas wondered to himself to how a different branch of humans and mythical races of humanity's imagination existed on this distant world, so far from Earth. He wondered if the Spirit somehow travelled to another universe, like in that multiverse theory. But one thing he was most concerned about was whether they were able to find a way back home to continue the war effort and reunite with their fellow Spartans.

Alice pointed to something over the horizon. "I see smoke several clicks away." Her augmented eyes allowed her to see things an average human being wouldn't able to see, though her helmet HUD helped as it zoomed onto the billowing smoke.

"We should investigate?" Douglas half asked and suggested.

After a moment of silence Jerome ordered his team. "Let's follow the smoke."

At his command, Douglas pressed on the speed pedal harder; the warthog sped through the landscape towards the location of the smoke.

* * *

"Just lie on the ground and die, you miserable filth!" Scarles roared as he lifted and brought down his poleaxe upon a ratkin warrior and sliced it into two, spilling blood and flesh over the blade. He kicked off the dead corpse off his weapon and surveyed his surroundings.

The lizardfolk saw the town of Wilsmoon in chaos as ratkins of different breeds rampaging across the town, slaughtering and destroying anything that was in their path. He saw one Ratkin warrior chopping down on a fallen human female as she screamed in agony, a bunch of Ratkin scuttle into the ranks of the town guard and a ratkin brute swatting away a merchant into a burning inn.

A mere moment ago, he was in this town trying to find something to eat and perhaps find someone that would hire him to guard or kill, then suddenly a horde of ratkins from the west of Tybe mountains attacked the town.

The ratkins were starting to become bolder and larger in their attacks ever since Elbe pulled most of their armies out to heed the call of the empire against the othersiders at Alnus hill. He heard from rumors that they controlled powerful magic and strange monstrous creatures that nearly annihilated the Imperial expeditionary force sent through the gate for their usual conquest. Sounds like the imperials bit more than they could chew, serves them right.

Scarles had no love for the Empire, seeing they were responsible for the near destruction of his people. He could care less if the Empire was conquered and ravaged by a superior foe.

The screech of a ratkin warrior with a billhook brought his mind back to the present as the same screeching ratkin charged at him, which he responded by kicking it very hard sending it crashing through a wooden wall several meters away. A handful of ratking sought to profit from the distraction, attacking him from his rear but he turned to face them just fast enough, decapitating their heads with one swing.

"Gahh, this isn't my day." The lizardfolk muttered as he skewered another ratkin.

Out of nowhere he felt something heavy hit him at his back, thankfully protected by the armour he was clad in else he would've end up with a broken back. He kneeled on the ground with a thud, out of breath from the strong impact. He looked up to see a large ratkin brute standing 7ft tall holding a club in their right hand. The brute let out a war cry and smashed its club one handed against the ground to intimidate him.

Scarles simply huffed at the display and readied his weapon for the coming fight. Ratkin brutes were nearly strong as four humans and slaying one usually required several human soldiers to do. For a lizardfolk Ratkin brutes weren't exactly the biggest danger to them, but if one wasn't careful it could become a very dangerous foe to face.

The ratkin brute roared one last time before it charged straight into him. Just before imminent collision between the two could happen Scarles sidestepped out of the way allowing the large being to pass through without harm. He then swung his poleaxe at the brute's back, the axe blade digging into the flesh and drawing out blood. The ratkin brute grunted and swung at the lizardfolk, who blocked it with his poleaxe. The force of the blow against his weapon pushed his body a few feet back. Scarles saw the ratkin brute stumbled after it swung its club, leaving him with an opening to finish off his foe, so with a mighty swing he smashed his weapon against the chest of his foe as it cut deeply into its flesh.

With a dying cry the ratkin brute fell down on the earth with a thud, its body unmoving and blood slowly pouring out of its chest wound.

The lizardfolk let out a sign of relief as he took out his weapon from the corpse to rest it on his shoulder. If the attack continued at this rate the entire town and everybody in it would be soon overwhelmed by ratkin. Ah well, if he was going to die today he might as well take as many ratkins as he could with him to his grave.

A chorus of screeches interrupted Scarles' short lived victory as a small mob of ratkin warriors turned around a corner of a building in front of him and ran towards him, wielding various wicked-looking blades and spears, the amount of them too much for his liking. As the distance between them was closing, Scarles whispered a short prayer to the gods and goddess of the world as he prepared for himself for what might be his last stand.

Just as he was about to bring up his poleaxe for a swing, a large crackling roar of thunder erupted across the air as the column of charging Ratkin in front of him became a cloud of blood and gore.

Confused and surprised by the sudden brutal demise of the ratkins in front of him and the roaring noise that was increasing in intensity. Scarles turned around to see a large black wagon with some kind of mounted ballista coming through the town's entrance, where he saw what appeared to be three large green golems riding on it.

Well this was going to be interesting.

* * *

"Douglas, Alice. Stay on the warthog, eliminate all the rat-like beings in the town and aid the defenders." Jerome ordered. "I'm getting off to search and rescue any civilians." He jumped off the passenger seat wielding a MA5B assault rifle.

Jerome landed onto the ground and fired a single shot at a charging 4'ft tall rat-like being, then fired several more shots at the other hostiles around him. The bodies fell onto the ground lifeless. One of the hostiles leaped at him but he swatted them away with a simple slap, while another tried to stab him with a spear but the spartan broke the shaft and burst fired into the attacker's chest. Jerome saw the ammo counter on his helmet's HUD showing him he had 42 rounds left in the magazines.

A loud roar drew Jerome's attention as he saw what appeared to be a large version of the rat beings he was fighting, except it was nearly as tall as him and broad as two humans side by side. It was currently charging at him holding up a large hammer with a head nearly the size of a small car engine. The spartan unleashed a full magazine upon the charging brute. Dozens of bullets dug into its flesh, ripping apart the insides and creating holes that gushed out blood.

Jerome looked at the rat brute as it fell to the ground dead and saw his rifle had around 22 rounds left. A shrill scream caught his attention, coming from some distance away to his left. Immediately Jerome sprinted through the building to his left, breaking apart the wooden walls into hundreds of tiny splinters as he searched for the source of the scream. After bursting through his fifth wall he was greeted with the sight of several smaller versions of the rat hostiles surrounding a group of civilians; a mother shielding her son and daughter. The children were crying onto their mother, terrified of the monsters that surrounded them and the potential fate that awaits them. The mother tried comforting her children in the face of death staring at them, without hope she and her children would live to see another day.

However today was not that day.

Jerome switched his rifle for a shotgun and blasted the closets rat being, blasting away its entire left arm and leaving it screeching in pain. He pumped in a new shell and blasted away a pair of hostiles with a single shot, the pellets ripping apart their bodies. The remaining hostiles let out raging screeches and charged at him, abandoning their former attention on the civilians, whom took the chance to hide at a more secure location in the house.

Unfortunately, the charging hostiles had closed in too much for him to use the shotgun, so he took out his combat knife for CQC. The world suddenly slowed down around him, as the hostiles seemed to move at a slower pace. His Spartan Time kicked in as Jerome analyzed each of the hostiles still alive; the one to his left was carrying a spiked mace, the one next to the mace wielding one was holding a pair of knives, the one facing Jerome held a cleaver and the one to his right held a spear. Coming up with a way to dispatch all of them, Jerome went into action. He stabbed his knife at the mace wielding hostile's face, snatched its mace and threw it at the face of hostile next to it. He then took the knife off his first kill and slashed at the cleaver-armed hostile's throat and punted the spear one away through the wooden wall. All of the following actions completed in less than 3 seconds at inhuman speed.

The mother and her children peaked from their hiding places to look in awe at the way their savior dispatched his foes.

Suddenly Jerome heard a roar coming from his rear and turned around to see another large rat charging at him… Before getting decapitated from behind by a swift slash to the neck.

The spartan looked at the one who killed the rat brute and was somewhat surprised to see the individual in question, a greenish blue reptilian humanoid standing around 7ft tall with pair of horns coming out from the back of his arrow-like head. He was wearing a battered armor covering his vulnerable chest and torso and a loincloth covering his crotch and behind are, except for the short tail. The reptilian humanoid was yielding a poleaxe as tall as him.

"Impressive, you an apostle or something?" His helmet translated the words the reptilian humanoid spoke. Jerome was confused by the "Apostle" term as the only thing he certainly didn't look like some kind of preacher.

"Spartan." Jerome replied simply, giving no further explanation.

"Well you and your lads came in at the right time. I was about to get overwhelmed by those damn Ratkin swarming around the town." The reptilian humanoid said. "Name's Scarles of the Zaukm clan."

* * *

 **Bio: Scarles**

 **Name: Scarles**

 **Role: Mercenary**

 **Patron Deity: ?**

 **Specie: Lizardfolk**

 **Complexion: Greenish-blue scales**

 **Hair Color: none**

 **Eye Color: Yellow**

 **Age: 54 years old**

 **Nationality: Zaukm clan**

 **Height: 7'1 ft**

 **Appearnace: koutanagamori/art/Lizardman-616327210**


	10. The Things to Come

**01:13 Hours, March 28, 2536 (UNSC Military Calendar)**

 **Stratosphere of unknown planet, Longsword Fighter Spear-2**

Lieutenant Commander Smith, call sign Spear-2, was feeling bored. He was aboard his C709 model Longsword fighter conducting an aerial recon mission over the surface of the unknown world many of the crew members aboard the Spirit of Fire nicknamed "Fantasia". For an hour he flew his spacecraft over the globe allowing his sensors, cameras, and computers to gather up pictures and data of the surface.

He and his fighter gathered everything that was happening on the surface, from the many settlements of various kingdoms, merchant convoy moving from one town to another, herd of beasts roaming in the wild, to the JSDF base being established around the gate structure located on top of a hill.

The JSDF haven't detected his craft or any other UNSC aerial assets or the Spirit herself, which wasn't surprising considering 21st century could do crap all to find his fighter, though to be fair for them they still haven't properly established military infrastructure at the base. He couldn't quite believe when he heard the insane stuff in the debriefings of a fantasy world with elves, castles, and magic, along with a military force straight from the 21st century coming to this world through some portal.

Smith wondered what year was on the other side of the gate, if it was before 2016 then it could be something that won't be messy to deal with. But if he was wrong it the year was post-2016 on the other side, things were going to be real ugly. The time period from 2016 to mid-2020s was a very turbulent period of time on Earth that had impact on the Interplanetary War and the formation of the Unified Earth Government and its political institution.

But right now there wasn't much to do except stare at his viewpoints and instruments for any suspicious or intriguing activity, but with nothing happening right now, it was becoming a boring job. And the only thing that was making the duty here bearable was hearing his crew bantering among themselves.

"And that's why I was grounded for a week by my uncle and aunt for nearly crashing the Spade into a Guta." Ensign Yu finished his story.

"How the heck do you nearly crash a Spade into a Guta? The Spades are easy to drive and Guta's a freaking big! Nearly crashing takes certain amount of stupidity." Lieutenant Honchar – the copilot – exclaimed.

"Yu's just really bad at driving. You should've seen the stunt he pulled off during his first and last driving test. Swore the instructor's heart was going to explode from that move." Ensign Sienna chuckled. "The entire test was a one big clown show."

"Hey it wasn't my fault there were six pedals in that car that made everything so confusing. I couldn't tell which one was the stupid brake or accelerator." Yu retorted. "And that's rich coming from someone who immediately crashed upside down in the flight simulator.

"Keyword is simulation, Yu." Sienna shot back.

"Hate to break it to you Sien, but your various tests in the flight simulation was atrocious." Honchar butted in the conversation.

"On the bright side, at least your navigation skill is good. Your a navigator a pilot could wish for." Smith decided to enter into the banter for the first time. "Though I would dread the situation where you have to pilot the craft to save our life."

"Ah thanks LT, your compliment truly warmed my heart that I could melt." Sienna replies sarcastically.

Smith made a small smile from the banter. His crew was snippy with each other but they were a close-knitted group that went through hell together as a team against the Covenant.

"So Smith, when do we think we're going to meet the JSDF down there, our alternate dimensions ancestors." Honchar asked. "We can't keep hiding from them too long, and sooner or later we're going to have to meet them to get a hold of where the heck were are at and how we can get back home."

"Don't know Hon, but I'm confident the captain has a plan for this." Smith said. "Honestly, can't wait to show to them what a 26th century fighter looks like compared to their flying, tiny tin cans."

As if his wish was granted a beeping sound came out Smith's console station. He took a look at what was causing the beep and discovered a radio signal near their area. The pilot then pressed few buttons and holographic pads where the fighter's speaker shot out a men yelling in Japanese.

"Any idea what he's trying to say?" Honchar asked.

"Give me a second, I'm turning on the translator." Yu replied as he worked his magic on the system console. "Aaand got it."

"This is Lt. Itami of 3rd recon team, we're engaging a huge dragon out here! We need reinforcement or else the civilians we're escorting are going to be barbecue."

"Based on where the message came from, isn't one of our drone stationed around there?" Sienna asked.

"Brining up aerial footage." Honchar announced as he pressed some buttons and flicked at the holographic screen in front of him.

Footage of 3 Japanese military jeeps engaging a massive red dragon appeared on screen. The dragon was nearly the size of the scarab tanks the Covenant uses, amazing the crew of the Longsword fighter of its sheer size.

"Is that a freaking dragon!?"

"Look at the size of that thing."

"It's breathing fire."

Smith noticed that despite the advanced weaponry the Japanese processed compared to the natives. The bullets didn't seemed to injure the oversized flying lizard or penetrate its skin. If this kept on going far too long, they're be eventually roasted by the living flamethrower, leaving the civilians to become dinner for the beast.

He knew what he had to do.

"Settle up boys and girls, we're going in. Sien prep the coordinates to the location, Yu make sure all systems are green, and Honchar get the 110mm spinning. I'll contact the captain.

Smith switched his COM to the ship to contact his captain. "Sir this is Spear-2 reporting. We received a distress signal from the surface, 3 JSDF vehicles are engaging a large hostile to protect a civilian convoy. Sir, based on the footage I'm sending to you. They won't stand a chance against it."

There was a moment of silence from the other side of the COM before the Captain's voice was heard. "Spear-2, you're clear to go."

When the sentence finished the engine of the fighter flared to life as it pushed the spacecraft down to the surface at speeds beyond any 21st spacecraft could achieve. A sword was coming down to deliver a fatal blow to the dragon, and introduce the UNSC to the JSDF with an explosive entrance.

* * *

'Well this is going well.' Itami sarcastically thought to himself as he fired upon the dragon's face with his Type-64 rifle; the 7.62mm rounds were doing nothing to the scales as they bounced off its impenetrable scale armor. The .50cals weren't doing much better as they achieved the same results as the rifle.

He saw the giant fire dragon was getting annoyed with the rounds impacting against its scales and face. It reeled back and Itami saw fire started to gather in its mouth.

"It's going to breath fire again! Look out!" He yelled out just as the dragon opened its mouth with an earth-shattering roar.

A long stream of fire flew across the ground and set ablaze the very ground they were fighting on into hell itself. Grasses burnt away into ashes while the soil blacken out from the gathering heat and ashes. The lieutenant knew how bad the flames were against flesh as he personally witnessed the fire reducing a woman into a barely recognisable charred flesh and bones.

That was a messed up way to die.

The dragon, irritated with the humans that were proving to me a bigger annoyance they're usually are, furiously roared at them as it lifted itself from the ground with its massive wings, blowing away the grass and debris like a raging storm. The dragon flew up the sky well beyond the range of the JSDF's guns. Satisfied that it reached the height it needed for its next attack, the fire dragon reoriented his wings and with a mighty push, the massive monster flew towards the ground. Fire gathering in its mouth as the dragon got ever closer to the ground where the JSDF forces were.

Itami internally cursed that they lost their rocket launcher during the chaos of the fight when they attempted to aim and fire a rocket at the dragon. He knew that despite their mobility, they would eventually be in more precarious situation if nothing is done about the dragon. That was when his COM started to buzz.

"3rd Recon Team, this is Spear-2 speaking, reinforcements are here." An American voice called to him.

He then heard a familiar sound of the screeching speed of a jet fighter breaking the sound barrier followed by several crackling sound of large caliber fire. He looked out of the window of the LAV to see the dragon diving towards them suddenly jerked as several fountains of blood and gore poured gushily out of its penetrated side, with a few missing as it created large showers of dirt from the ground leaving some large craters.

The fire dragon gave out last roar that was a cross between a scream and fear as it lost control over its massive dying body, falling to the ground at a increasing speed before crashing with a large thud, creating a large dirt cloud from the impact. The people watching from the sides looked with awe before one of the cheered, igniting a chain reaction of everybody else following the first one's cheer.

The dreaded Fire Dragon that plagued the lands for centuries was finally dead. Killed by whatever magic the men-in-green brought with them.

However the men and women of 3RT were confused to what has happened. They were glad for whoever helped them in slaying the dragon, but at the same time confused to who was helping them in the first place. They knew the unknown known as "Spear-2", who had an aircraft with considerable firepower if its gun was able rip apart the dragon's thick scales, and spoke english. However they know there was no way that the government would allow a US military aircraft to pass through the gate, so the only conclusion they could think of was if whether if there was another gate nearby.

Only thing they knew was that things were about to get interesting.


	11. Off to Italica!

**01:49 Hours, March 28, 2536 (UNSC Military Calendar)**

 **Surface of Fantasia, Irisia's Hut**

Irisia rummaged through the scrolls and papers piled around her desk as she quickly inspected each and every one of them to find the documents she was searching for. Behind her were members of Sunray 1-1 waiting for her to finish her task, some stood guard while others did some exploring of the hut.

Quinn was observing at a glass jar containing a sample of some sort of weird plant thing, some hybrid between a sunflower and a mushroom. While Turpin was looking a drawing of what appeared to be an unholy amalgamation of a serpent, a prey mantis, and a caterpillar.

"That looks like one ugly son of a b-."

"Urrrgh! It's not here!" Irisia shouted slamming her hands down on the oak table in frustration.

"What's not here?" Vaughan asked.

Flicking off here a bang of hair from her face as she turned toward to face the major. The sorceress looked at the ODSTs inside her house, aware of the arduous work ahead of her future. The people of the base told her that they needed someone who could practice or know magic to help them find a way back home since magic played a role in bringing them here to Falmart.

She saw they lacked any single knowledge of the art of magic. Her first assumption in seeing the fantastical images and devices that they were imbued with magic that allowed them to function. But some explanation and further observations showed her a different concrete conclusion; they weren't powered by magic but was a by-product of advanced engineering and technology eons beyond their time. The creativity and knowledge of mankind unchained and allowed to flourish, consuming new knowledge and turning it into new gifts they could use.

This heavily intrigued her as she never heard of any new non-magical inventions or innovations that occurred for the past thousand years, stuck with the same tools and contraptions their ancestors were using. So, to see these people using things unheard of or seen grabbed her attention. The weapons they used was basically a new form of the crossbow, refined and advanced to fire small metal objects at speeds beyond what man could see.

Besides studying their technology, she also had a more personal reason to help them as she could sympathies with them for being far from home.

Home…

That was something she could relate to, what she lost her decades ago to a vicious monster attack that killed everybody but her as the sole survivor. She was still working to this day to find the monster that murdered her family and friends, and permanently end its threat once and for all.

"Uhhh hello, anyone there?" Vaughan asked, feeling uncomfortable with the lady in front of him intensely staring at his direction for some reason.

Irisia's face morphed into apologetic expression at his question. "Sorry, I was thinking of something else. But to answer your question, the scroll that'll help you isn't here in my home. I swore I took a small note of it." She said the last part quietly to herself. "If you want to find a scroll concerning portals, the next best place to find one or similar is at a library. More specifically, the library of Rondel."

"Rondel?" Vaughen asked.

"The city of magic. Home to the Rondel magic academy and home to the best master sorcerers of these lands, and a hub of knowledge and learning. If you want to meet someone smart or obtain rare knowledge, then that's the place where you want to go." The purple-haired sorceress declared. "The library at Rondel holds some of the rarest scrolls and books any sorcerer-in-training wishes to grab their hands on.

"The eggheads back at the ship will love this, especially the professor." Sparks whispered.

"And where's Rondel at?" The major asked.

"The city of magic is located far north from here, past the Romaria mountains, take around several weeks to get there on foot. Though there is a problem."

"What's the problem?"

"Getting the needed scroll there in the first place is impossible considering its value and knowledge is only accessible to grand and elder mages." She said. "But there is another way to get in there. I have a former mentor who reside at Italica, he's a former grand mage of Rondel but he still has the privilege to access the scrolls you need."

"Italtica? Where's it at and what can you tell me about it?"

"A town located northeast of where we are, just a few days walk away from Alnus hill. The town is under the control of the clan Formal, and a vital trading town in the empire and situated around the most important agricultural areas." She explained.

Vaughan then switched his COM directly to the ship to report to the captain. "Sir, major Vaughan here, we're going to need a ride."

* * *

"This feels… I cannot explain the words I'm feeling riding inside a metal bird." Irisia whispered looking around the interior of the pelican dropship she and her escort were in.

"First ride is always eye opening with how fast you could go without feeling a thing or throwing up your lunch." Turpin said.

"Though some can't handle the ride for the first time around." Quinn teased at her.

"Hey that was the pilot's lousy flying!" Turpin defended herself.

"Yeah, because I seem to recall that everybody else looking like they've been riding it for years while your mouth looked like someone shot green crap into it." She retorted.

"I… Ugghh." Turpin let out a defeated cry.

"At least you got used to it Turps." Sparks chuckled.

Gruss glanced at the banter between the younger members of Sunray 1-1 before her head stared into the interior of the pelican, uninterested with the conversation as she stared out without a purpose. However the sight of Irisia looking unsure and unease with all the banter and being the first native on this world to ride a 26th century spacecraft decided that she could use a conversation or so, considering her main talking buddy was busy looking at his TACPAD absorbing new information coming from the Spirit and various UNSC forces, and planning out their arrival at the city of magic and the backup plan they had just in-case things went hot; a backup plan in the form of a platoon of marines and a tank on standby. Maybe bit overkill but who knows what might happen in the city.

"Flying in a pelican not what you expecting?" The medical officer of the team said to the sorceress across her.

"Huh? Yes, when I imagined flying I was expecting to feel the air and the world beneath me within my sight, but this." She gestured to the seating and the roof. "It feels a bit disappointing but I do have to say the work put into making this is impressive. I take it that this is your best one your people could make?"

"The best one? This pelican is one of the tens of thousands we have and it ain't the best one in the UNSC aerial fleet." Gruss nonchalantly answered.

"Thousands!?" Highly improbable, the amount of metal required to build thousands of these metal birds was unfathomable! The Empire would be bankrupt million times trying to gather the metals to construct them. "There's not enough iron in these lands and beyond to forge thousands of metal birds!"

"Well Ms. Krystallo, our people managed to achieve this phase of development called an Industrial Revolution. Where metal and resources could be harvested at an astonishing rate and iron became as cheap and plentiful as wood." Gruss gave her the simplest explanation of the Industrial Revolution, as she wasn't well verse in 20th century history and she didn't remember the exact details.

"Iron cheap and plentiful as wood!? Your people must be incredibly wealthy and powerful to achieve it." She exclaimed.

'You have no idea.' Gruss thought at how she'll react to the true scale of human civilization beyond this planet.

"Yeah, we have a lot of things you can't imagine." The ODST medic said.

That was when the Pelican's intercom blared to life. "This is Quebac 204 to Sunray 1-1, we're approaching the LZ. We have considerable amount of distance between us and the town so we won't cause panic." CPO Leblanc announced.

"Well, that's our que." Sparks said as he got out his M99 Stanchion from the overhead compartment. A weapon that was basically overkill and unnecessary where a simple sniper rifle would've done it. The fear factor of the weapon's power should intimidate any potential adversary that they might encounter in the future.

"We're here already? It didn't even feel like an hour has passed by?" A confused Irisia asked.

"Make that less than 10 minutes or so." Vaughan said looking up from his TACPAD.

"We've just crossed few hundred leagues in that short amount of time." She whispered.

"We're landing in 3… 2… 1." The pilot announced.

The occupants of the dropship felt the troop bay lurch as the pelican descended down to land on the earth. The landing gears attached to the ends of the troop bay detached when the dropship was meters away from hitting the earth and configured into a landing state as the wheel beneath the nose of the pelican opened out. The dropship made a graceful landing onto the ground as the thrusters of the dropship blew away leaves and dirt with its invisible push.

Following this, the bay door opened up, the lower portion opening down to act as a small ramp for its occupants to have a stable platform to move down.

The ODSTs of Sunray 1-1 quickly disembarked the pelican and made a semi-circle around the exit, weapons out and ready to secure the perimeter if unwanted elements were near them.

"Clear." Vaughan reported, his MA5B never facing down to the ground. He then gestured towards the troop bay of the pelican, telling the final occupant to come out.

"Was that necessary?" Irisia questioned.

"Standard procedures, M'am." Vaughan answered. "And you said it yourself, bandits would be coming out of the woods as Italica's army was taken away by the Empire for their military campaign, leaving the town defenseless. Bandit or marauder presence would be incredibly likely."

"Major Vaughan, this is Lieutenant Skye, 4th platoon and I are coming to your position." A male voice called out from his COM.

He then saw the dirt and gravel on the earth started to shake as a rumbling sound could be heard with increasing intensity near a small forest. Soon a pair of M808S Scorpion tank busted out of the forest, knocking out trees and sending dirt flying away from its crushing treads as it made towards the squad. Irisia took out her staff in a defensive motion looking at the coming tank with a fearful awed expression at what appeared to be some sort of armored scorpions with strange limbs.

"Another one of your creations like the metal bird?" She asked Vaughan.

"Yes, the M808 tank also known as the Scorpion tank. Think of it as like a mobile siege engine." He explained it to Irisia who nodded in acknowledgment and simply watched the large metal construct move past her. The light that gleamed off the shining Armor looking powerful enough to withstand the fiery power of a great fire dragon and appearing to be forged by the finest blacksmith unseen in all realm rivaling or exceeding the dwarves of the north. The long metal tube protruding from the rear tower thing was like a hungry predator, shifting from one direction to another in search of prey to satisfy its hunger. The entire way the siege engine looked and appeared as it roamed over the ground like a titan walking over lesser beings, it made her heart and mind heat up at the mere sight of it and the destruction it could bring down to its enemies.

Following behind the Scorpions was a platoon of marines numbering around 30 individuals, all of them geared up, prepared for their newest mission. Irisia saw within all of their haunting eyes the harden souls carried by many war veterans, those who experienced and burdened by the nightmares brought forth from countless bloodshed and staring into the darkness every moment of their life. These weren't some your average conscripts or marauders or some blood lusted followers of Emroy, the marines she was seeing knew what war really was.

A short, broad marine bearing the insignia of a lieutenant approached the ODST major. "Major, I'm lieutenant Skyre of 4th platoon of the 71th battalion. 4th platoon, Big Bess, and Mad King will be providing support and backup in case things go sour in the town." He thumbed towards his platoon and the tank.

"Thank you, Lieutenant. We'll call you in if we need exfiltration."

* * *

"Well the town is sure looking good." Gruss dryly remarked.

Far from the front of the Sunray 1-1 and their purple sorceress guide was the city of Italica - a vital settlement under the control of the Empire with its economic importance and strategic location on major trading routes. The city was usually a secure place with the army of clan Formal patrolling the town and the outskirt regions, and merchants from all corners of the Empire and vassal states coming in to sell, buy, or exchange goods of all kinds.

Today wasn't that day if the smoke and corpses was apparent to the town's newest visitors.

"Hey Irisia, what do you think happened there?" Sparks asked as he peered through the scope of his stanchion.

"It appears the city was under attack, by whom I don't know but I didn't think it was this bad." Irisia answered. "All I know from news and rumours that most of Italica's forces were taken by Count Formal to heed the Empire's call for an expedition to the Gate."

"Portal thing that connects two worlds, together right?" Turpin asked.

"Yes… Though I remember hearing some rumours of the armies of the Allied Kingdoms facing near annihilation at the hills of Alnus. Won't be too surprised if some decided to strike out on their own." Irisia stroked her chin.

"Looks like a civilian milita are manning the walls and some sort of knights appearing to be alongside them, I'm seeing some kind of rose symbol on their armor. My guess is they're an order of knights." Sparks observed through his scope on the people manning the walls of the city.

"So, what's the plan of getting into the city major? Cause I don't think they might not be receptive towards visitors." Turpin look to the major for orders.

"We go in the city slowly to assure that we aren't a threat to them, though our armor might spook them out. Irisia, do you think you could move in front? I think they'll be more receptive towards someone more familiar looking." Vaughan turned his head to Irisia.

"I understand what you mean major, having a more familiar face ahead your men to the city would make them less tense compared to you and others moving in; last thing all of us need is some conscripted commoner shooting at you in panic." The sorceress understood what the major wanted. The defenders of the city would be weary of people trying to enter their city if they recently suffered a siege.

"Alright people, let's move, the city ain't going to come closer for use. Turn the safeties on your weapons on, we don't want any misfires here."

The group resumed their journey to Italica, keeping their guard up in case they walk into an unpleasant situation or if the defenders decide that actions spoke louder than words right now. The ODSTs knew they were walking into a potentially hostile place where things could go wrong in any second and anyway possible. Of all the members of Sunray 1-1, Turpin was getting that familiar feeling again.

"Why do I have a feeling that this is going to be hail mary soon?"

"Turpin, do us a favor and don't jinx us." Gruss blurted out. "Last thing we need is you dragging us into one of your adventures."


	12. Past meet Future

**01:44 Hours, March 28, 2018**

 **Road to Italica, Falmart**

Itami yawned as he woke up from his short nap as the rumbling of the Humvee roaring across the earth filling his ears. The lieutenant rubbed his eyes to clear away the remaining tiredness in his eyes and blinked few times to get used to the light.

He looked around the interior of the Humvee to see Kurata in the driver's seat, looking at the road in front with a passive expression. He glanced back to witness Sgt Mjr. Kuwahara having a small conversation with Lelei; Mari trying to initiate a conversation with Tuka who looked rather downtrodden, staring at the floor with a blank expression; Rory was cleaning her weapon with a (creepy) admiring expression that was more fit on the face of a mother caring for her baby. They were all heading to Italica - a city which refugee said was famous for being a vital hub of trading and commerce activity and located on a strategic road network connecting to various cities and towns. Taking control of Italica or having them under Japan's influence would mean JSDF would have much larger sphere of influence around their base and forcing their enemy to go to the table for peace talks.

But there was the other unknown variable in all of this plan, the unknown that helped 3RT in defeating the fire dragon was causing a firestorm back at HQ. The aircraft called himself Spear-2 and its foreign origin caused many in intelligence to work fiercely 24/7 to uncover the origin of said aircraft and its capability. The intel they gathered up so far as of now was that it is manned by an English-speaking pilot and having an over-sized gun as the bullet wounds on the fire dragon corpse showed the calibre of the rounds calculated to be around 120mm in size. The plane shot the fire dragon to death with tank rounds.

All of the gathered information dropped the sky on their heads as they now realized that there was an unknown faction in the special region. From what he heard before he left the base, there was tons of rumours being thrown around ranging from another gate opening in America to advanced native civilization and finally aliens landing at the Special Region. Itami didn't knew what to think of it, but with all the things he was seeing right now having aliens suddenly landing at fantasy land wouldn't give him a major shock.

"Hey LT, did command sent in people ahead of us?" Kurata asked.

"No, we're the only ones ordered to head to Italica. No other recon team is out there besides us." Itami replied. "Is there a problem?"

Kurata pointed his finger in front of the vehicle to something far away. "Well… It's just that we have company ahead of us."

Itami followed to the direction where Kurata was pointing his finger at and raised an eyebrow at what he was seeing in front of him.

Hundreds of meters away from their convoy was a platoon of soldiers all clad in heavy green-metal armor that looked like it could eat an entire M16 magazine effortlessly and armed with futuristic looking weapons that reminded him of the ones seen in futuristic FPS games. However, it wasn't the soldiers that got his attention, but the two large gunmetal grey tanks in midst of the platoon of soldiers pointing their cannons at their approaching convoy, and as they got closer Itami saw the tanks were much different compared to the ones everybody else operated. The tank had quad-track setup contrast to the traditional two-track setup used by all national militaries and had a small profile turret that appeared to be automated mounted on the rear instead of the centre.

"Well, that is a sight you don't see every day." Kurata muttered nervously, sweat pouring down his face one by one.

"What's the matter? Do we have hostiles in front of us?" Kuwahara asked as he moved between the driver and passenger seat. "Oh… You think they're related to Spear-2?" The aging sergeant asked after seeing what was in front of him.

"This is Lieutenant Skyre of the UNSC marine corps, stop your vehicle and disembark it. Any hostile movement will be met with lethal force." A voice announced in Japanese through the radio.

"Definitly." Itami said. "Kurata, stop the convoy."

"LT? You're sure about that? We don't know anything about them or what their intentions are." Mari asked in concern, gripping her rifle nervously.

"Well we don't have much choice when they have tanks on their side." Kuwahara pointed out to the two tanks aiming their large cannons at them.

The Falmart natives in the vehicle with them were confused to what was going on, Lelei peaked over the seat and asked. "What's going on?" The mage saw there were a group of soldiers and two armoured elephant things the JSDF used; she initially thought they were part of the Japanese force but noticed the details on their outfit was radically different as many of them had steel plating.

Not men of green, but men of steel.

The convoy slowly went to a stop roughly 50 meters away from the group of unknown soldiers and the tanks. Itami opened the door and disembarked from the Humvee while the others inside prepared themselves for a possible confrontation, despite knowing that they would survive a firefight, except for Rory. The gunners aboard the Komatsu LAV and the Type 73 light truck gripped the handles of the mounted weapon, but fingers off the trigger to prevent any accidental weapons discharge.

Itami observed that the soldiers in front of him were composed of variety of difference racial groups, ranging from Caucasian to African to Asian. He was looking at a group of soldiers whose diversity reminded of American military teams he worked with, through far more racially diverse than the US ones. The battle uniform they wore was covered in large amount of armor plating that made the most well protected infantry looked like they were wearing some cheap ballistic armor. He noted most of their weapons resembled FN F2000 assault rifles albeit bulkier more intricate, while a few of them carried large sniper rifles and double-barrelled rocket launchers. All of them had an insignia patch on their shoulder armor depicting the acronym UNSC.

The only UNSC he knew back home was the United Nations Security Council. He hoped that these unknown soldiers might be part of the UN.

"Uhhh, hi?" Itami waved at them with a confused voice.

"Idiot." Sergeant Kuribayashi muttered, shaking her head.

"State your name and rank." One of the soldiers said, presumably the commanding officer of the group of soldiers.

"Lieutenant Itami Yoji of 3rd recon team of the 1st division of the Eastern Army." He replied. "…Who are you people?"

The soldier who was talking to him, that one Itami saw had a lieutenant rank insignia, answered him. "Lieutenant Skye, UNSC Marine Corps, 8th platoon of the 71th battalion, 45th regiment."

"UNSC?"

"United Nations Space Command. The military, scientific, and exploration arm of the Unified Earth Government."

Skye spoke out loud enough for the rest of the JSDF convoy to hear his words and process its content through their head. Shock and confusion spread throughout the convoy, hearing about what appeared to be a, presumably, futuristic faction possessing advanced technology and a reflection of their future standing right here in front of them. The natives not understanding the shock and confusion as they didn't see what the big deal was with the people who looked similar to the men of green.

"Holy crap, you people are from the future!" Itami exclaimed. "I was right!" He looked at his squad behind, pointing towards the UNSC marines. "Do you have spaceships? Space colonies? Jetpacks? Oh, and flying cars, finally?" The 33-year old man asked in rapid succession.

Skye was caught off guard by the sudden bullet storm of questions thrown at him by a man who was acting like a kid in a candy shop. "It's in the name. And no, we don't have flying cars those were pure death traps; having car accidents is bad enough, imagine the accident rate for people travelling in a 3rd-dimensional environment." There was a great reason why flying cars never took off the ground even with advances in cheap air transportation, roads and wheeled cars were just plain easier to manage and control.

"So how did guys end up here in the special region?" Itami inquired. "Was it through some gate-like structure?"

"You could say something like that, but I'm afraid the information is classified. My commander wants to keep things in the shadow until he meets your superior."

"Ok, but I have a question. Why are you here in Italica?"

"Exfil team for our boys and girls inside the city."

"Huh, we're going to the same place. Find information of the surrounding and allowing our guides to do some trading over there with dragon scales." Itami thumbed towards Lelei, Tuka, and Rory peeking out of the Humvee.

Skye made note to tell the captain of the apparent economic importance of dragon scales, it appeared that it was some sort of valuable commodity. He looked at the convoy ahead of him, noting the anarchic designs he was seeing, most belonging in a military museums and documentaries of past wars, it was strange to him, to the UNSC, ending up at meeting Earth's past and their ancestors. He looked towards the three natives in the front vehicle of the Japanese convoy to see a light-blue haired teenager wearing blue robes and holding a wooden staff emotionlessly staring, an honest real life female elf wearing modern clothes looking with a confused face and finally the little girl who was basically some discount anime goth heroine with her red and black dress and the bow on her head, along with the huge ass weapon she carried.

Her eyes then moved to meet his directly and Skye felt his world turn cold, not the type of cold of a winter but the chilling feeling of death coming embrace its next victim; then there was this internal cry in his mind to flee from the death, destruction, and insanity before him. The marine used all of his will and discipline to control himself again, breathing slightly heavy at the experience he suddenly had. Staring at the girl directly brought out a level of nervousness and fear he never felt since he joined the corps and looking at her he could make out a faint smirk present on her face. Whoever she wa– no, this thing, it wasn't human.

"Lieutenant? This is Vaughan calling in. I've got reports of a large number of hostiles coming to the city from south of your position, coming to the rear of the city." The major's voice came through his platoon COM.

"How many hostiles? And what assets do they have sir?" Skye asked for the composition of the hostile forces.

"Around thousands of them heading here based on what our drone show us. They also have some heavy support, some kind of oversized brutes." There was a short pause before the ODST major spoke again. "Hostile army ETA is 56 minutes."

"Got it sir, I'll have the platoon deployed to defensive position. And we have some guests here major."

"Let me guess, it's the 21st century earth people."

"Yes, we could hear their COM chatters miles away before they arrived here."

* * *

 _19 minutes before 3RT's Arrival,_

 _Southern Wall of Italica_

"So, what's the plan now? Since we got the HVT target." Quinn muttered, tapping her left index finger on the battlement.

The entire squad and their sorceress and her mentor were at the top of the southern walls of Italica, volunteering to do lookout duty and aid the city against the invaders. Vaughan initially didn't intend to stay in the city longer as he didn't want to risk his squad in a battle not concerning them; however, after a brief sitrep with the captain they, and the exfil forces, were ordered to stay with the city. The captain's reasoning was that by helping them it'll allow the UNSC to establish a reputation among the populace of the world, which would give them a degree of soft power in dealing with different factions and people, along with gaining the trust of the native people of the city.

Not to mention Italica was a strategic location, being the large economic hub. Establishing a base here would mean the UNSC having control over a strategic position that would allow them to gain information and activities of various factions and individuals that could greatly aid them. So, here they were, defending some medieval city from an invading, murderous army, working with a princess with a hilarious name named after a cocktail drink.

"Krystallo managed to find the individual we need and convinced him to aid us." Sparks said glancing at Irisia talking to her mentor, a bald elder dressed in a typical wizard robes colored in red.

"And this leaves us with the siege issue the city has right now. The emergency militia here isn't enough, most of them don't have any combat experience of any sort and the only ones who do are those rosy knights. City isn't going to last long with its defenders clearly on its last legs." Gruss assessed the militia scampering around holding wood and weapon to aid in further fortification. He could see their eyes were filled with terror and fear of fighting for their very lives, but he could also see within them the conviction and desperation to protect their home.

"That's why we have a platoon of marines and two tanks hanging near us, ready to blow up any SOBs thinking of attacking this place." Turpin injected.

"It would be preferable if the militia had the minimum amount of skill to defend themselves without endangering themselves because of their lack of training or knowledge, even with the firepower we have things can go sour when we don't have intel on our foes." Gruss pointed out.

"Alright, Turpin, get the drone ready. I want recon on the area around the city." Vaughan ordered before heading to where Irisia and her mentor were.

In response Turpin pulled out Bill from her back and turned the drone online, then lightly threw Bill into the air. The drone immediately hovered above ground before moving away from the wall of Italica to the fields outside as Turpin controlled its movement from her TACPAD, from there the drone would gather data and images of the countryside around the city of Italica to locate the army that was causing the city so much grief.

"Aha! So, you are the folks my student is aiding, and you need this old man's help to get a scroll in the most treasured library in all of Falmart." The elder grand mage narrowed his eyes in observation at the strange people in front of him, armored unlike anything else he seen in his life and the strange tools they wielded. "Forgive my lack manners, my name is Fanta La Orion, former grand mage of Rondel."

"Major Vaughan." He introduced to the grand mage. "Mr. Orion, you and Irisia can help us find a way back home for our people. We need your understanding of magic and your access to the library to get the portal scroll." He explained.

"And why do you need the scroll for? The entire thing about it is bunch of theories, questionable test results and an incomplete study considered not worth the time." Fanta inquired to the major of reason for desiring the scroll.

"Where we came from and how we got here is a secret, but one thing I can tell is that the gate your people know plays a partial reason for our stranding here."

Fanta's eyes went wide as a dinner plate what Vaughan answered. "Are you people thinking of studying the portal to open your own gate?!"

"Something close to like that."

Just as Fanta was about to say something Gruss ran up to Vaughan and reported. "Sir, drone has just received footages of enemy forces moving in, several miles away from the city and arriving here at around an hour or so by rough estimates."

"Show me."

Images and video footages popped up in his VISOR showing what appeared to be an army of thousands of men dressed in armor, though many were not fully armored with some forgoing it; supporting the masses of bandits were several large, bulky brutish humanoids; and finally, among the horde were several siege engines. Most of them artillery pieces with a single battering ram. Such an army would've been a formidable force to face for a city like Italica in its current state. It was a good thing they had a platoon of marines and tanks with them, the firepower alone they had could cause a lot of casualties and demoralize them into retreating.

"Someone call the princess, tell her we've got incoming."


	13. Battle of Italica

**02:27 Hours, March 28, 2018**

 **Italica, Falmart**

A marine platoon, two Scorpion tanks and a JSDF recon team stood outside the southern gate in their defensive position, guns pointed at the encroaching enemy forces. UNSC marines laid prone, kneed, or stood on the earth, their weapons loaded and ready to fire at moment's notice with an aura of stout professionalism. The JSDF contingent were at the rear preparing themselves and discussing with their commanders the situation at hand.

"Yeah sir, we're at Italica but some other folks got there before us." Itami said nonchalantly before he flinched back at the receiver loudly demanding an explanation. "Well sir… How should I put this way? They're not from the special region since they're basically the space UN from the future."

There was a period of silence before the voice on the other side of the radio was more audible as the team could hear their commanding officer voice scream. "I'm not joking here sir, they're really space UN from the future I swear! Also, our team and them are about to defend the city from an army of bandits about to attack us in few minutes, so we could use some backup in case things to sour." Itami requested, which his commanding officer accepted.

Itami turned to face his team and the falmartians with him. "Guys, I have good news: command is going to send the 4th combat unit to Italica. Bad news is, it's going to take around an hour or so for them to get here."

"Honestly with the firepower the UNSC brought with them." Kuribayashi pointed to the UNSC marines in their defensive position. "A platoon of soldiers with advanced weaponry and two tanks… I don't think the bandit army would stand against us."

"Still beats being caught off-guard if some unknown element like a fire dragon joins the battle." Itami shuddered slightly at thinking of the monstrous fire dragon his team fought. "Then again, the space UN probably called for their own reinforcement."

"Besides, we have a mage and a demi-goddess with us!" Kurata glanced to the blue-haired mage and the huge halberd wielder.

"Speaking of Rory, do you guys notice how the space folks are keeping their distance from her?" Furuta noted.

The rest of 3RT looked around a bit to notice the weary, suspicious look they were casting upon the gothic lolita girl. They saw the marines who would pass by her would make alternate routes that would keep them far from her as possible, their body language suddenly on the edge and their fingers close to the trigger of their weapon as if Rory was about to attack them like a rapid beast. Rory on the other hand wasn't giving them a reason to backdown as she was swinging her halberd, getting her body ready for the coming bloodshed while giving the UNSC a smirk that sent chills up one's spine.

"They don't like her." Mari stated the obvious. Her team were open and on sort of friendly terms with Rory while their ally didn't seem to share the same sentiment. The UNSC seemed to look at Rory as if she was a nuke that was on a countdown.

"Why? I mean she's not doing anything bad and she's helping us." Itami questioned, remembering the fire dragon incident.

"Because she's the apostle of Emroy the god of darkness, war, death, violence, and insanity. Only the most bloodthirsty idiots would dare to be near her or challenge her." A harsh tone of a woman called out.

The squad turned to see woman in her late twenties dressed in a purple outfit with a cloak, wielding a bladed staff fit for a magician approaching them.

Lelei recognised her and whispered. "High Sorceress Irisia Krystallo…".

Irisia raised an eyebrow at Lelei. "Master Cato's student. What brings you to Italica?"

"I can say the same thing for you, last I heard you were living far south at the Schwarz forest."

Irisia pointed towards the UNSC forces. "They came to me for help, said they need my expertise to help me find a way back to their home, something about getting access to the portal scroll and the magic behind the gate."

Lelei's eyes widen at that. "But the scroll of portals is locked in the library, no one but a grand master can access it!" She exclaimed, surprising the JSDF that she broke her stoic persona.

That was when an old man dressed in a simple robe benefiting of a monk entered. "Well that's why the uee ann shhh eee came here to see me."

"Grand Master Spinela." Lelei recognized the grand master before her, a man of great renown in magic and the knowledge of the world. From what she had learnt of this man so far, he taught the high sorceress for over a decade before he decided to retire to his home city of Italica.

"It was a surprise to see my old apprentice coming to my home with several strangely armoured folks needing for my help." The old grand master let out a cough before recomposing himself. "It seemed our new friends are stranded here by a portal or something similar to the gate, thus they asked of me to help give them an easier access to the portal scroll."

"The elders of the council won't be too receptive towards the idea, grand master Spinela." Lelei pointed out.

Before the aging grand master could say something, major Vaughan came up to the group. "Sorry for interrupting the chit-chat but the bandit army is here. It will be best you all head to defensive position or cover." 

* * *

Pina observed the forces outside of the walls composed of men of iron with their black staffs and their two massive iron war beasts reminiscent of giant scorpions. They were facing the direction where the army of allied kingdom deserters were attacking from by the forces of the UNSC led by centurion Vaughan who offered to help defending the city.

Curious as to where the man and his band of warriors came from aside from claiming they're far away from their homeland. Looking at them and the ones revealed themselves to be the men of green, she immediately saw the similarities in their equipment between them. The men of steel were heavily armoured and wore dark green clothing. While the men of green were barely armoured and dressed in lighter green garbs; and seemed to lack the harden veteran appearance of many of the men of steel.

From some reason it felt like she was seeing a kingdom and its vassal state coming together for a great battle.

There was a cry from someone that the bandit army was here and she looked forward to see the distinct horde of bandits appearing out of the horizon like a swarm of locust eager to devour a field of crops. She could see the torches shown up like multitude of lanterns, and the large imposing siege engines carried forth by labouring men or beasts of burden.

The princess also heard a great shriek from the sky and looked above to see a large metal bird flying down from the sky with blue fire coming out from its stubby wings and legs. It flew over the wall and the defenders, towards the coming army to where its prey was.

"There's the pelican." One of the troopers pointed at the metal bird.

"Pelican?" Pina wondered at the name of the metal bird.

"Looks like the major is going for asking for their surrender." Lieutenant Skyre remarked next to her. "You told us they are the remnants of the allied kingdom army that attacked Alnus, and now resorting to banditry instead of returning home?"

"Yes, we were surprised to find the remnants of the allied kingdoms attacking us instead of the men of green. They've been trying to break into the city to pillage, rape, and destroy everything they see and touch." The leader of the Rose Order of Knights replied.

"… Disgusting little craps." Skyre spat out. He then turned his COMs to contact the major when he saw the pelican stopped to hover in front of the hostile army.

"Sir, you think Quebac 204 can get them to surrender? From what I've heard, the hostile army here are some vicious folks."

"Major, they rejected the offer of surrender. They're firing arrows and ballista at me." CPO Leblanc reported through the COM.

"Never mind." Skye muttered.

"You're clear to attack, Quebac." Major Vaughan ordered.

"Alright sir, Paul prime the missiles and start the 70s. Aim for the siege engines." CPO Leblanc ordered to her co-pilot. The pelican fired its Anvil II missiles at the army in front of her creating blossoms of fire and death followed by 70mm chain gun fire that sent dirt erupting from the earth, leaving behind a panicking army and screams of the dying. The pelican's wrath soon aimed at the siege engines of the marauding army, the fires and metals reducing the wooden engines of war into splinters.

Defenders at Italica were hearing an orchestra of the booming explosions, the crackling of gun and the haunting cries of the bandits. The Falmamrtians watched in awe and horror at the havoc the pelican wrecked upon, while those of the JSDF and the UNSC were unfazed by the display.

"Looks like the morons are charging at us." A marine pointed towards the bandit army now charging at the UNSC defensive position, disorganised and confused. Quebac 204 was flying away now that it had expended its ammunition on the hostile forces, its weapons throwing the entire army into disarray at the sudden losses of hundreds of men and siege weapons in matter of moments.

Once the enemies were in firing range the marines and the scorpion tanks fired at the charging enemies. Massive swarm of AR and BR rounds ripped through flesh and blood of the charging masses of warriors, painting the ground beneath in scarlet red and torn organs; sniper fire blasted entire heads into hundred pieces or blasting fist-sized holes into chests; tank shells and rocket blasts transformed entire groups of men and humanoids into craters and burning flesh unrecognisable to anybody.

Sparks looked through his scope and carefully aimed the reticule at one of the large humanoid beings, an ugly to look at, possibly a troll. The sniper pulled the trigger of the large gauss rifle and his body slightly shook from the heavily-dampened recoil as the 5.4mm round travelled at a speed over 15 km/s, the following result was a spectacular display of blood and gore as the round literally exploded the entire torso of the troll and the line of infantry behind it creating a long line of gore.

"Wow! What's that gun your're using!" Kuribayashi asked, eyes shining with fascination at the sight of the Stranchion.

"Stranchion, a gauss rifle." The ODST sniper answered back.

"Can I try?"

"… Heck no." The sniper looked at her incredulously before resuming his combat.

Irisia looked at the carnage in front of her, brown eyes locked into the frightening display of the might of the UNSC in front of her. Ears pounded with incredibly loud songs of the dying and explosions coming from the wrath of the people she was aiding to find a way back home. Guns of the marine soldier firing off like a twisted music of booming cry and the siege weapons of the UNSC roaring out great plumes of fire that erupted the very ground the enemy stood on. Every single blast of fire from their sticks of metal left nothing but a mockery of fallen warriors whose corpses were left in an unrecognisable form in a butchered meat or scattered piles of organs.

The violet sorceress felt her lunch was about to force itself out of her mouth as she felt bile gather up. She was used to seeing death throughout her life but the battl- no slaughter was too much for to handle, the way the UNSC dispatched the army of bandits were like that of a butcher. Fast and brutally efficient. She looked into the eyes of the soldiers firing their magical weapon and the team she was with, their faces showing no trace of mercy or disturbance at the slaughter they were inflicting.

Have they witness so much bloodshed and death that the sight of this… slaughter didn't even bother them?

Meanwhile with the Imperial defenders at Italica, they were literally dead as stone at the display of the UNSC's might. They were initially sceptical at how a small group of mercenaries and two strange siege weapons could help them against an over thousand strong army of bandits coming over to pillage the city. But now seeing the fiery doom inflicted at their common enemy, Pina couldn't help but feel a tiny bit of pity for the bandits. She stared at how a small group of men were unleashing what looked like godly powers: men dying and ripped apart out of nowhere with explosions erupting from the ground without the UNSC being physically contacting the enemy, faster and more brutal than many a mage could manage.

"By the gods… S-so much death, so fast…" Hamilton whispered in silent horror.

"This isn't a battle, this is a massacre." Grey muttered, his eyes filled with a mixture of awe, shock, and fear. 

* * *

Golden eyes opened up for the first time in a century, blinking few times to get itself aware that it was awake from its slumber. A very long slumber it had.

The slumber it had was a rather quiet, filled with nothing but the void of its own mind along with the occasional memories of past hunts and kills. Satisfying moment that gave it the thrill of hunting down lesser beings, to feel their helpless and fear before its teeth sank into its pitiful body as sweet blood entered its mouth.

It couldn't recall when it had happened but it knew it happened in the past, and found itself wishing to experience the moment over and over again. It was probably why the beast woke up, it missed the past where it roamed the world where the lesser things feared it and doing what pleased it. It needed to hunt and feel the thrill of being dominant over its prey.

An unfamiliar scent entered its nose, it never smelled this kind of smell in its long life but it recognised some familiar one mixed into it.

The smell of death, fire, and blood.

It knew that there was fighting happening between lesser beings and preys, and when there was fighting it usually meant large amount of prey, which meant that there would be large amount of food to hunt whether it was dead or not. Events like these were a very rare treat for it as it meant a huge feast to fill his empty stomach.

It was time for the Manticore to go on its hunt.


	14. Manticore

**02:37 Hours, March 28, 2018**  
 **Italica, Falmart**

The battle was over. The fields outside of Italica was one massive graveyard of mutilated corpses of countless bandits and humanoids littering every square inch of the earth. The ground stained woth blood. Men and women of all kinds were roaming over the battlefield, gathering up the bodies and blasted body parts to put them to rest in the mass graveyards that was being dug.

However, there were survivors of the battle whom were kept as prisoners under the watchful guard of the UNSC and the JSDF team. The bandits were responsible for Italica's devastation and heavy losses among the city's citizens, so it was understandable that some would look for vengeance at the prisoners. The prisoners themselves were in a constant state of fear from their captors, unsure what kind of treatment they would receive or the fate they would be sentenced to.

The prisoners who were wounded during the battle were being overseen by the medics of the marine platoon. Wounds ranging from gunshots to blown up limbs were treated with diligently by the medics. Though there were some concerns on how to treat the un-human ones as the UNSC lacked the knowledge of their biology.

"Hey, do you wonder why we're here?" Turpin asked out loud to Sparks.

"It's one of life's greatest mystery isn't it? I mean why are we in this fantasy world. Are we because of some product of terrible strings of luck we're getting? Or is it some part of a highly intricate plan beyond any mortal comprehension of a god above us? You know, all this stuff keeps being echoed in my mind ever since we arrived here." Sparks wondered out loud.

"… I was asking why we're standing here, doing guard work." Turpin said confused.

"Oh, never mind." Sparks muttered.

"You wanna talk about it?" Turpin inquired.

"It's nothing, just some irrelevant rambling."

"Didn't sound irrelevant, the way you said it."

"I mean- ughhh… Never mind, just forget about it." Sparks grumbled.

"If you insist." Turpin shrugged.

They went back to watching over the plains before them, mesmerized by the clean landscape untouched by development, battle or glass. The two ODST wondered what became of their homes - reminded of the beautiful natural sights they saw throughout their life - whether it survived the war or was it blasted by the Covenant over the past years they were in cryo; wondering if all of them could even make it back home alive or were they just stranded in this strange world for the rest of their lives.

It was then their VISORs took notice of several objects coming in and audio was picked up. The sound was similar to that of a Falcon's rotors spinning around, but much louder and more clunky in feel. Sparks zoomed in with the scope of his gauss rifle to take an extreme closeup view of the incoming objects to determine if they were friend or foe. He then saw the silhouette morph into helicopters – a design he recognized being popular in the 20th century– flying towards their general position at breakneck speed. There were three designs in the coming helicopter fleet: one was a transport, another was a gunship with its gun and rocket pods and the last one was some sort of recon aircraft. He then saw the symbol of the JSDF marked on the side of the helicopter.

They must be the reinforcement the JSDF recon team called in. Too bad they were too late for the battle and would be left with clean-up duty.

"They sure took their time." Turpin looked at the incoming JSDF helicopters. "Too bad they missed their fun."

Then something flew towards one of the transport helicopters, going so fast that the helicopter had no time to evade as its engine engulfed into flames. The helicopter spun out of control nearly hitting the others, the pilot aboard tried to control it but the force of the spin made it impossible as the increasing speed threw out some unlucky soldiers out of the doomed aircraft. Seconds later there came a crash followed by a dust storm kicking off from the impact, hiding the broken helicopter from the world.

"You had to say it." Sparks glared at Turpin.

The other helicopters quickly broke off to disperse from any further attacks, the gunships facing the direction where the attack presumably came from.

The two ODSTs on the ground then heard their COM come to life as they heard the chatter from the JSDF helicopters. "What the hell was that!? What just hit one of us!" Someone demanded from the COM.

"We've lost Moon 3! I repeat, we've lost Moon 3!"

"What the hell hit us!"

"Come one Riku, please say something!"

The chatter soon when silent when a massive back-chilling roar, similar to that of a jet engine, echoed across the land, a large dark shape landed near the crash site of the helicopter like a meteor. The impact sent dusts in the air as the ODST's VISOR could make something big within the cloud of dust. Torn metal was thrown out of the dust cloud, telling the ODSTs that something very big was taking apart the helicopter. Eventually the dust cleared to reveal the thing that brought down the helicopter.

The monster was huge; big enough that it could comfortably fit an Elephant in its stomach and looked strong enough to flip a tank over. The beast had a body of a lion but with the wings of a bat and spines like that of a porcupine; the tail of a scorpion; and the creepiest of all the head that resembled that of a feral, hairy, human with horns sprouting from its skull. And sticking out of its mouth was a leg of a JSDF soldier.

"That is one ugly son of a bi-." Turpin's sentence cut off when the other gunships opened fired upon the monster. Rockets and 20mm rounds impacting against the beast, engulfing the monster in a large ball of fire and shrapnel, surely killing it with the latest 21st century firepower. However, to the shock of the ODSTs and the 4th combat unit, the beast was unharmed from the attack, though it made a deep yelp from the attack that seemed to have slapped it in the face.

The beast rose up again, high and mighty, its golden eyes twitching as steaming hot anger seem to flow out of it. Its massive bat-like wings brought out and flapped down, sending a wall of powerful wind that sent dirt and rocks flying away. The beast roared as its wing continued on its powerful push, the monster's speed increasing as he made its way to confront its flying foes. The JSDF responded back firing at the beast, trying to take it down before losses could mount up any further.

"Great, just what I needed today day." Turpin grunted.

"Call Vaughan to bring in animal control." Sparks aimed his weapon at any potential weakness the beast might have. 

* * *

"The heck is going on!" Vaughan demanded as his COM was filled with screams, yells, and call for reinforcements.

"Sparks and Turpin are reporting that an unknown massive hostile is attacking the JSDF aerial group near Italica." Skye referred to the COM report and the sound of a battle nearby. "Took down two helicopters already."

Vaughan furrowed his brows in worry, wondering just what manner of creature had taken down the helicopters.

"Incoming!" A marine yelled out.

Vaughan suddenly thrown on his back when something that was dark and burning nearly missed his body by several inches crashed on the ground and rolled for several feet. The ODST major blinked few times at what just happened before him. He then turned slightly to his right to see Irisia's right arm on his chest plate and her head looking at him with concern.

"You alright major?" She asked.

"I'm fine. Thank you for saving my life there."

"No worries, good thing I managed to save you in time."

The ODST rose from the ground with the help of Irisia and looked at what nearly killed him there and then. He saw what appeared to be a slightly burning and darken remains of a helicopter. It was on its back as the broken rotors tried to come back to life, the tail section of it was entirely ripped off showing no trace of where it went, and the barely alive personal within it.

"I want medics with them now! Get your weapons ready marines, we're not out of the trouble yet." Vaughan barked out as marines scrambled over to their position and the Scorpions bringing their turrets to aim where the hostile would presumably come from.

Vaughan then looked at Irisia. "Do you know what is attacking us? And the roar from earlier."

Before Irisia could answer the question Rory suddenly appeared to answer it. "A Manticore, the Beast of the Many."

"A Manticore!?" The purple sorceress yelled in shock.

"Manticore?" Vaughan asked.

"A legendary beast with skin like that of iron, its wings gushing out a powerful windstorm, and spines like that of a ballista." Rory said ominously, an ever-creepy smile forming on her face disturbing Vaughan. "No mortal weapons can harm the skin of the beast. Only those enchanted or gifted with magic can stand a chance against it."

There was a roar coming over from the hill far away getting the three's attention to it. From over the hill came two ODSTs running for their very lives from the Manticore whose malicious visage came into view of the defenders and the city. Civilians outside of the city panicked at the mere sight of the horrid monster and ran towards the city for safety.

Vaughan heard Turpin and Sparks yell into the COM channel connecting them to him. "Sir, we've pissed of the monster, luring it away far from the city as possible." Sparks reported with a panicking tone as he and Turpin sped away on a warthog, veering left to get the Manticore as far away from the city as possible.

"What did you two do to get it so angry at you two!" Vaughan demanded, noting the beast obsession with two of his squad members.

"We may or may not have shot at its balls." Turpin yelled.

That explained a few things.

Vaughan then saw JSDF helicopters approaching the manticore for another round. The choppers all fired at the Manticore, peppering the back of the beast's back with gun and missile fire but showed no signs of harm on its body. The Manticore stopped its chase and turned around to face up its flying attackers. The beast lowered its body against the ground, the porcupine-like spines aimed at its flying foes before it and the spines inside it shot out like an arrow.

However, the pilots of the choppers weren't going to fall for the same trick again as they dodged to the side to avoid the quill-like projectile. From the empty spot of where the quill spines were, new ones grow to take the empty spots. The beast shot forth several more at them but the helicopters dodged the projectile while continuing their assault on the monster.

The Manticore grew increasingly annoyed that it couldn't easily take down the pests flying around it. It came to this place expecting easily kills, but alas today wasn't its day, as the monster was facing more pain and resistance. Suddenly a new scent entered its nostrils traced with fear coming from the large den. The monster made the decision to turn back and attack the large den, seeing that it was more vulnerable and easier target to attack.

"It's going to the city!" A marine yelled out as the Manticore jumped in the air and its wings flapping as it glides toward the city. The Manticore soon landed within the city, sending out a pillar of debris and dust for those to see outside of the city walls. Immediately the UNSC forces outside could hear screams and the roar of the beast as the monster rampaged inside the city.

Vaughan ordered marines to evacuate the city and find a way for the Scorpion to get into the city to get to a position to fire upon the Manticore, next he ordered in a request for air support. The ODST Major took a rocket launcher and ran into the city to get any civilian out of the city as much as possible, while finding a way to strike the Manticore. He then felt wind rush by him as he looked to his left to see the little girl with the huge halberd pass by as fast as a Spartan. The sight of how fast the girl was going unnerved him. Someone tapped his right shoulder and Vaughan glance to see Irisia running next to him.

"Get out of here, it's not safe!" Vaughan tried to deter Irisia from going with him.

"Major, I am not some helpless maiden in need of saving. And as you can see right now, none of your weapons managed to harm the Manticore in the slightest. The only thing that could harm it is magic, and I'm one of the two able to use it." Irisia's eyes bore into his, the determination inside them clear.

"Fine, but do you have any ideas of how to take the monster down?" Vaughan asked the sorceress.

"My magical skill alone wouldn't be enough, if I had more power than it would be easier to kill it. That's where your rod of fire comes in." She pointed at the rocket launcher.

Vaughan looked at her confused. "What do you mean by my weapon?"

"Remember when the apostle said that only those enchanted with magic could defeat the Manticore. I know a spell that would help you defeat the monster." Irisia's hand started to glow as she touched the barrel of the rocket launcher started to whisper out a chant he couldn't understand.

He was startled to see his weapon started to glow very faintly, he was considering stopping what she was doing to UNSC equipment but was curious of what kind of help she was giving to his weapon. Soon after 4 seconds passed by Irisia stopped the chanting and stepped away from the weapon. Vaughan could see his M41 rocket launcher was faintly giving out a yellow glow and felt that his weapon was somehow… More powerful and mystic.

The major looked up at Irisia and demanded. "What did you do to my weapon?"

"Enchantment, more preciously lightning enchantment." Irisia said with a smile. "Now your weapon has the power to kill the Manticore."

So now his rocket launcher was magical? The inner nerd within him was jumping up and down that he was holding a rocket launcher that apparently had magical lighting within it. "So now my weapon is magic?" He asked her.

"One way to find out, come on." Irisia took his hand and dragged him towards the direction where the carnage was happening.

The duo navigated through a pathway of destruction, passing by debris and corpses of those whose life cut short by the Manticore. It was a sight familiar to that of the battlefields he served through, while Irisia felt sick looking at some of the mutilation and half-eaten corpses of the citizens of Italtica. They soon arrived at the marketplace, an area large enough to accommodate a small firebase, where they were greeted with the sound of roar and flesh tearing apart.

Rory was fighting the Manticore, zipping around the battlefield like some superhero, dodging around the swipe, slam, and bite of the Manticore. Each time the Manticore missed, Rory would strike against the monster with her oversized weapon, her blades slicing apart the flesh. The monster would roar from the pain of the attack but relentlessly continued, the attacks never fully felling the beast. Rory jumped up in the air and brought down her weapon upon the wings of the Manticore with mighty speed and power; the halberd tore one of the wings in half.

Vaughan was amazed at how a little girl was moving around and possessing all that. Just what was it? The things he was seeing should have been impossible for something in the shape of a little girl.

The Manticore shrieked in pain as its human-like head made a pained expression that disturbed Vaughan at such a human-like expression from a monstrous being. The creature was enraged at the loss of its wing and it swung its tail around and hit the apostle of Emroy. The whip-like strike shattered bone as she was sent flying away through several buildings across the city.

The monster huffed at seeing its foe dispatched for now and move towards where a den where a group of prey was gathered. It was time to fill its belly.

"Hey ugly, eat this!" Vaughan yelled as he fired his enchanted rocket launcher at the monster's side.

The 102mm rocket enhanced by magic flew towards the Manticore like a frenzied shark lured by blood in the sea. The world seems to have slowed down as the rocket moved ever closer to the beast before hitting its target in a flash. There was a great explosion as the rocket unleashed its explosive content that was then followed by lightning bolts appearing out of the sky, striking against the monster, causing it to shriek in utter agony from the explosive-magical attack.

"Wow… Those would've been useful in the war." Vaughan whistled at the result and looked at the modified rocket launcher in fascination

The Manticore recovered from the blast but not without suffering a major injury as Vaughan and Irisia saw the heavily mutilated side of the monster. They could see the side between its front and back legs heavily burnt that its brown skin faded into black, and its muscle and bones exposed to the open world. The monster looked at the ODST and the sorceress, roaring at the two with such intense rage that steam seem to come off of its body.

The monster charged at the two covering the distance between the two and swiped its paw at them. Irisia put up a magical barrier to protect against the attack but shattered like glass by the force of the incoming paw. However, it bought the two time to dodge the attack. Vaughan dodged to the ground barely escaping the attack yet, as if the universe hated him, his rocket launcher was nicked and flew away from his hand. Irisia rolled across the ground, quickly getting up on one-knee and launched a fireball from her hand at the monster's face.

The Manticore reeled back in pain, roaring at the burning sensation on its face. The monster swung its tail at the sorceress but Irisia formed an ice wall just as the tail slammed into it. The ice wall held against the blow but she saw several cracks forming up and that the next blow would be a finisher. She ran out of the ice wall and jumped inside a ruin building to take cover for a moment as she was trying to figure out her next plan of attack.

She peaked out of the building to notice Vaughan crawling towards his rod of fire enhanced by her magic. A growl was heard before her world was reduced to a wooden splinter as the wooden walls around her was gone, replaced by oblivion as she was exposed once more to the open world. She looked up to see the Manticore looking at her with face full of contempt and lunged forward to bite her body off. The sorceress was quick to conjure wind magic to make her fly away from the attack and float above the Manticore's back, where she then casted a spell that gathered all the nearest debris ranging from splinters to large stones. With one flick of a finger she bombarded all of the objects she had gathered onto the Manticore, the monster letting out a surprised yelp at the barely effective barrage.

Unfortunately, she failed to notice the Manticore's tail coming towards her direction and barely saw the incoming attack before bringing up a barrier. Despite the barrier protecting her from the worst of the attack, the rest of the force broke through the barrier and sent her flying towards where Vaughan was. The ODST major jumped in surprise when a body landed in the spot he was several seconds ago and saw that it was the purple-haired sorceress lying wounded on the ground.

The roar of the Manticore got his attention, his helmet now facing the Manticore charging at him red in its eyes and drooling like a dog. The ODST quickly turned to his right where the rocket launcher was few feet in front of him and dashed to get his hand on the weapon. Reaching it and scooping it off the ground he brought it to bear, steadying the launcher and aiming at the charging beast, Vaughan's time came to a crawl as adrenaline kicked in. Reducing the beast's charge to a slow crawl and him moving his finger to click the trigger at a snail's pace. Once the trigger was pulled, the head of the Manticore was engulfed in a fiery display of yellow and lightning.

As the smoke dissipated away from the Manticore. All that was left of the monster was a twitching headless body, slayed by the union of magic and technology.

From the ruined buildings surrounding the Manticore, the citizens of Italica peeked out of their hiding places to witness the sight of the dead Manticore. Staring with wide eyes at the mythical beast slayed by one man, they all started to whisper in shock and awe looking at Vaughan.

For Vaughan, there was no cry of victory or boast of glory the citizens expected, just few simple words muttered through his COM. "Someone call in MEDVAC. We have a wounded at my location!"


	15. Diet Session Will Begin

**10:14 Hours, March 31, 2018 (UNSC - 2536)**  
 **Alnus Hill, Fantasia**

"So when's the UNSC going to send in their folks?" Itami asked Yanagida.

"Don't know but heard they were going to arrive soon." The 1st lieutenant took out a cigarette and lit it. "Things back home are on fire after we lost several men and helicopters at Italica. We never suffered any losses after taking the hill and defending it, but now that we've lost several at Italica, the public is demanding answers."

The battle with the Manticore was the first JSDF combat casualties ever since World War 2. The 4th combat unit lost several helicopters and majority of their crew along with colonel Kengun in the fight against the Manticore that was more powerful than the fire dragon Itami's squad encountered days earlier. More salt to the wound at that battle was the JSDf forces unable to avenge their loss as the UNSC successfully killed the beast, and indirectly had the city of Italica under their influence. Off course there was the matter of the Imperial princess coming over to Japan for a deal of peace, but Yanagida suspected that the UNSC might have advised her to do so as she witnessed their power unleashed at the bandit army; only doing so because she was told that the JSDF had similar power. Even when she witnessed their atroicous loss against the Manticore while the UNSC suffered none.

Speaking of which, there was a elephant in the room that had to be addressed now. The appearance of the UNSC faction, the United Nations Space Command. A multinational faction that claimed to come from a alternate future reality. Normally the lieutenant wouldn't believe it but after entering a fantasy world and seeing the camera footages of the 3rd Recon team, he acceptance of crazy things was more open than ever. Then again having a science-fiction element entering fantasy element was really a strange one.

The appearance of the spacefaring organisation in the special region was a shocking one, a high-tech faction from a alternate far future was something nobody anticipated, and a unknown elements that could disrupt Japan's plan for the region. However, the UNSC could be a blessing in disguise, their advanced technology something Japan could use to gain an advantage over other countries having a monopoly over the sole transdimensional port and advanced space technology.

"Hey Yanagida, do you see that?" Itami interrupted his thoughts and was pointing towards something in the distance in the blue sky.

Yanagida looked up to see what Itami was pointing but initially had no luck seeing what he was seeing. He narrowed his eyes to take a better look before he caught a dark object very far in the sky. And it was coming in fast that he had trouble tracking it's coming trajectory as it came closer to his view… Along with becoming larger by the second. Both his and Itami's mouth slowly dropped to the ground as the object became clearer and the shape transforming into something man-made. Their eyes couldn't believe it as the object soon stopped before them, its entire mass taking up their vision. They were unable to comprehend something big they were seeing could move so nimble like a jet plane, yet looking like some sort of flying brick.

Before them stood a actual honest to real life spaceship. Not like those rocket-shaped ships you see or like a UFO saucer, but one that looked like someone got a military ship and transformed it into a practical, space worthy ship. The ship's size was easily much bigger than Alnus base and several times longer than the US aircraft carriers. Both individuals could see the the english words written on the ships's slanted hull – **SPIRT OF FIRE** – and a white drawing of a eagle standing guard over some planet like a guardian. The appearance of the ship allured them, the U-shaped bow of its upper structure, the slanted hulls of its body, and the overall industrial feel made the two awe its beauty. A ship built by human hands to sail the vast depths of the endless space, the final frontier. Unaware to their attention, all of the base personal were outside staring at the ship with shock, awe and fear, with number of them taking out their phones or camera to take photos or record the massive ship that swooped in like a jet and was now floating near them like lumbering, sleeping giant.

For the Falmart natives, they were frozen in shock by the ship's entry. Many of the civilians were on their knees praying for help or bowing to what appeared to them a enormous monster of iron sent forth by the gods to punish the lands below them. Pina and Boze nearly fainted at the sight of the massive flying fortress of iron that flew in like a dragon, while others like Leiel and Tuka fainted unable to comprehend what they were seeing. Rory, just had a passive face with a look of curiosity and contemplation.

"Dude, the ship just flew in like a jet plane…" Itami said, his jaw still on the ground. "Look at the size of that thing!"

This was going to be a problem for the Japanese government.

Suddenly a female voice spoke through every single COMs and speakers. " _ **This is UNSC Spirit of Fire, representative team is on-route**_."

* * *

A small group of pelicans and albatross dropships flew out of the hanger bay one by one and down towards the JSDF base. The Japanese down below locked their eyes on the incoming dropships, quickly taking pictures and video recording of the space VTOL transports coming in; to them it was like some sort of surreal dream coming to life, seeing a actual spaceship like that of science fiction appearing before their eyes.

All the UNSC dropships gracefully touched down to the designated LZ inside of the base's airfield. Landing gears popping out and thrusters powering down as the passengers and content of the aircrafts disembarked.

From the two albatross rolled out a massive M650 Mastodon APC and a pair of Cyclops from the heavy-lift transport. All eyes were zoomed onto the two modified mechs, with many of the crowd fans of mecha anime and shows, they were amazed and joyed by the appearance of actual functioning armed-mechs – looking like it could throw a tank upside down with its arm. From the handful of pelicans they dropped out the warthogs they carried on their tail and the marines inside, coming out of the dropship as if they were some sort of special operations group. The growing crowd watched in curiosity at the marines, but their attention was drawn to a behemoth of a figure coming out of one of the spacecraft.

The green-armoured figure towered over any of the marines present around him, the tallest one barely reaching the armoured man's shoulders. Compared to the company around him, he was fully enclosed in heavy green armor looking thick enough to withstand bullets and wearing a helmet with a golden visor. Many thought they were looking at some kind of combat robot but saw that its movement was very fluid, too fluid to be mechanical yet somewhat unnatural for someone large. On the right side of his chest armor plating, they saw the numbers 042 written across it.

"Wow, that must be some kind of power armor!" One of the JSDF personal muttered.

"Like starship troopers?" A corporal asked.

"Nah, but more sleeker and less bulky."

"Looks like this diet session is going to be interesting." A officer observed as the UNSC boarded their vehicles.

* * *

"Approaching the gate." The Mastodon driver announced.

The heavy APC carrying the acting UNSC representative, marine escorts, and the two cyclops riding on top rolled ground towards the structure housing the gate, leaving behind tracks with its large wheels. Behind and front of the APC were warthogs and humvees escorts protecting the vehicle from any threats they might face when crossing the otherside. Along with the UNSC convoy, the other vehicles ferrying the native Fantasians were coming up behind them.

The doors of the concrete dome-like structure housing the gate opened up to show a classical greek architecture gatehouse large enough to fit the UNSC APC. The gate was opened which lead to a empty void black as space. The lead humvee was then given the all clear sign by the guards, which then made its way to the gate, leading the convoy behind it to the dimensional portal. The convoy drove into the gate and rolled across the nothinginess inside the gate.

"What the heck am I in." The Mastodon driver whispered, looking out to the void he was driving across.

"Serina and Anders are going to love this." Lieutenant Commander Ullo Viiding muttered, looking out through the ports. Despite knowing of the gate existence when he was debriefed by the captain as being the acting UNSC representative for the Spirit of Fire to the apparent alternate Earth and the Fantasians, he still couldn't believe that some interdimensional portal was connecting a early 21st century earth to this world… A fantasy world straight out of the movies.

The convoy went about for what felt like a eternity before a bright light greeted them. One that grew bigger as the line of vehicles went ever closer to the light surrounded by darkness like a beacon of hope. The column poured out of the gate on the other side to where they stood in the middle of 21st Ginza district of Tokyo city in Japan.

The marines in the warthog stared at their surrounding in amazement, seeing that they were literally standing on Earth, the homeworld of humanity and the capital of the UEG where they came from. The sight of being at what was supposed to be one of the great megacities of 26th century Earth, where massive skyscrapers and super highways dominated the cityscape; but the Tokyo they were at right now lacked all of these features with a concrete road and buildings straight out of some primitive outer colony lacking advanced materials. However, this was something to be expected as they were at a alternate Earth nearly 500 years into the past, lacking advanced materials and technology that were familiar and common to the UNSC.

But a number of them had to admit that the sight of a Earth city, despite its rustic and primitive appearance, it was a welcoming sight for the weary marines. However now wasn't the time for sight seeing as they head to head towards the Diet session for a important meeting that will change the course of human history of this Earth. The convoy pushed on to their destination: The Japanese National Diet building.

* * *

CNN reporter Jake Maddison looked at his watch to see the clock was ticking near the time the diet session was going to start at. He and other countless reporters like him from various news station were sent to the inside and outside of the Japanese National Diet building for a monumental event that was about to come. Visitors from the otherside of the Gate were coming here for a hearing about a battle that resulted hundreds of civilian losses under the watch of the JSDF, along with the rumoured 'aliens'.

He heard and saw from rumor and leaks from the internet of a another faction in the special region, one that wasn't of the native of the fantasy land but originating from space!

Jake managed to gain some information that the newcomers had access to advanced technology and was responsible for saving the life of a recon team days earlier. It was said that the sci-fi folks apparently were human and claimed to be from a alternate far future. Months ago if those information reached his ears, he would've laughed at it and forget it into oblivion as the sheer preposterous nonsense he heard. But after the battle of Ginza and the appearance of the gate, that didn't seemed too far off.

"Hey! The convoy is coming here in a minute!" Someone cried out, causing every reporter and camera crew to look at the direction of where the convoy was going to arrive.

Soon enough the convoy began to appear before them, going from a black dot in the horizon to a concrete shape as they came closer. Jake raised a eyebrow when he noticed that besides the humvees and a black SUV, there was several unknown military vehicles in the convoy; ones he never seen in his reporting days when covering the military or things he saw online. There were several jeeps of some sort cruising in the convoy: they were exposed to the world to see as he saw heavily armoured soldiers wearing futuristic armor driving it and manning the minigun at the rear. But the massive vehicle in the center of the convoy got his attention as it was bigger than a tank with heavy-duty wheels nearly the size of a man attached to it. It looked like if a monster truck combined with a APC to produce this enormous green armoured vehicle that looked like it could crush a tank just by rolling over it. He glanced to the back to see a gatling gun found on the jeep mounted on some sort of sentry turret, and much to his shock and awe were two large robots sitting on the side with a cannon mounted on its right arm!

Every single camera were either taking pictures or recording live of the convoy approaching the Diet building, the world was watching the live event happening on whatever devices or places they were looking at.

When the convoy came to a stop at the building, everybody had their breaths taken away when the massive UNSC APC came to a stop, allowing the Cyclop mechs riding it disembark. The mechs landing on the concrete floor with a thud, slowly rising up to show its mechanical glory to the world; the people at the scene jaw dropped at a real-life working battlemech standing before them as the Cyclops went to a defensive position. Electronic screen all over the world was currently focused on the Cyclops mech as it went to a defensive position, putting themselves between the crowd and the convoy. Everybody's eyes glued to the mechanical marvel before them, their wildest dream of a working mech coming true in their lifetime.

Meanwhile all over social media and forum websites, people were going nuts over the Cyclops mech. Discussing of the engineering behind the mech, how much firepower one could put on it, and a vicious argument on whether mechs were practical in modern combat.

The rear door of the Mastodon APC opened to the world as the UNSC representative and the security team moved out of the vehicle, quickly gaining the camera's attention to them, more specifically the appearance of the Spartan supersoldier. Reporters were conversing with themselves and to the camera, focusing on the behemoth of the green armoured figure. Many people all over the world at the scene itself or somewhere else spoke in awe and curiosity of the Spartan, discussing the nature of the figure if it was some sort of military robot or a highly advanced powered armor, along with discussing on the potential technical aspect of the Spartan based on the look they were getting.

Off course as soon as the Falmart natives and few JSDF personal exited their limo, the press then focused on them too after the UNSC party went out of their camera vision. The excitement of seeing futuristic soliders now passing onto actual fantasy people coming to the modern world, with similar reactions happening of seeing an actual elf and what could be the supernatural coming to life.


	16. The Diet

**02:00 Hours, March 31, 2018 (UNSC - 2536)**  
 **National Diet Building, Japan**

There was a great deal of tension filling the air of the main Diet chamber as the UNSC, JSDF, and Falmart natives sat down on their respective chairs for the coming hearing and meeting. The armed marines who were escorting Viiding were left outside of the chamber, guarding it from any potential intruders or assailants; while Spartan 042 was in the chamber with the UNSC representative standing guard behind him as everybody else stared at his massive, green, armoured body with awe and trepidation.

Behind them were rows upon rows of seats filled in by journalists, reporters, camera men, politicians and military officials of different international backgrounds. In fact, the Japanese inside the Diet were outnumbered by foreigners. Also attending the diet session were several UN officials sent forth by the UN to observe the event and the people of the UNSC, claiming the matter was far too important for a single nation to handle thus it warranted their presence.

The Japanese government didn't like that they had to invite NATO, UN, and other foreign officials of international organisations to the event of something that was claimed by Japan. Though the severity of what happened on the other side of the gate and the presence of alternate humans from the future went out of their control. Once leaks and news broke out, the USA and multitude of other countries more or less forced Japan to open the gate matter for the international community as the presence of the UNSC made it an incredible global affair that could change the course of humanity.

Standing at the decks in front of the massive chamber sat three officials. One was Diet member Mizuki Kohara; the other a UN official named Faruk Gonul; and finally the US ambassador to Japan named Paul Olsen.

"Silence please." Faruk Gonul asked as the murmuring in the chamber died down.

"Today was originally a session by the Japanese government on the reviewing of the action that took place where over hundred refugees died under JSDF escort." Gonul announced. "But after certain events on the other side of the gate, the gate matter required more direct intervention from the international community." The Turkish UN official made a subtle jab at the Japanese government's attempt to hoard the gate to themselves.

"For those who still haven't kept with recent events; On march 28, during the battle between 3rd recon team and the Gateland Type A Beast called the Flame Dragon. An unidentified aircraft not belonging to the JSDF or any other military on Earth intervened and eliminated the beast, stopping it from causing further harm. And later on, at the city of Itatlica, an unknown group of soldiers and tanks with foreign technology was found defending the city." Gonul finished. "The faction called themselves the UNSC – not the United Nations Security Council – but the United Nations Space Command…" The UN official finished with a dramatic pause as the people in the room started to quietly murmur with one another at that revelation.

"Would the representative of the UNSC stand before us." Gonul asked staring at the desk the UNSC were using.

A man, who appeared to be of Southeast Asian origin, stood up from the table and saluted in show of respect. "Lieutenant Commander Ullo Viiding of the UNSC navy. Naval officer aboard the UNSC Spirit of Fire."

"Commander Viiding, could you say words of where you come from and the purpose of your ship in the other world?" Gonul inquired.

"Thank you Mr. Gonul, it is an honour to be speaking to the member of the predecessor organisation to the UEG and the UNSC." Viiding thanked.

"UEG?" Ambassdor Olsen asked.

"The Unified Earth Government." The UNSC officer answered.

With those three words social media exploded as conspiracy theorists started to scream about a new world order run by the Illuminati or related groups, the UN finally revealing its true colors and sending its troopers to force the world under its control, and other nonsensical theories.

"Unified Earth Government?" Olsen repeated in surprise.

"Yes, as to the questions Mr. Gonul asked from me. From where we came from, it is the 26th century, the current year for us is 2536." Viiding answered.

The audience started to get louder at the news of the UNSC people were from over 500 years into the future. Those inside the diet and the people watching it from their screen were interested in how things were like in the alternate future 26th century world the UNSC came from. Did they have flying cars? Dyson Spheres? Laser weapons and space colonies?

"But off course before I continue on. I would like to introduce someone who would help provide additional information and answering questions of an abridged history of where we come from, with additional details and information in later data. Serina, the show started." Viiding said as the Douglas handed him an AI chip containing a portion of Serina.

The naval commander showed the AI chip to the world as a hologram of the UNSC AI suddenly appeared for everybody to see. Many gasped and startled at the appearance of a holographic young Caucasian dark-haired woman dressed in a futuristic looking white long-sleeved shirt and dark silky-looking jeans. Her face formed a smile as she briefly looked around before looking up at Viiding.

"Well it certainly wasn't a first-class ride." The holographic woman dryly remarked with a British accent before facing the three individuals sitting at the high Diet tables. "UNSC AI SNA 1292-4 at your service." She introduced herself. "But you can call me Serina."

The room looked in silence at Serina. Right in front of their eyes and in the screens all over the world was an actual Artificial Intelligence. A self-aware robotic intelligence something many in the modern world were trying to create. The human appearance of Serina made some unnerved at the human appearance the AI was choosing.

"When you mean AI do you me-." Mr. Olsen was then cut-off by the AI in question.

"Yes, I am an Artificial Intelligence, a 2nd generation smart AI specifically."

"We would like to know more but that will come in the future, we will continue on with the inquiry." Gonul decided to continue and not derail the event.

"Ah yes, introducing us and the history of the UEG and UNSC." Serina hummed to herself. Her human-like behaviour making the once crowd more at ease with her presence.

"In the year 2075, the UEG was commissioned by the United Nations as an assembly of political leaders and brilliant minds tasked with avert crisis of the next century by solving governmental unification issues of colonizing non-Earth territories." Serina said.

"May I ask why this was done?" Kohara asked, her eyes looking with contemplation.

"Colonizing space required international cooperation of massive scale as even world powers at the time like China, European Federation, and the USA couldn't bear the financial weight of space colonization alone." Serina elaborated on that detail. "And it was also done partly because of rising popular movement all across the world calling for unification of humanity and the abandonment of the concept of nation-state and nationality; saying that they are responsible for the creation of untold human suffering, and only benefiting the few nation-states exploiting others or squabbling amongst themselves over meaningless pride." She finished the sentence, allowing her words to settle in.

Small conversations and whispering soon followed as major political and social figures and organisation were discussing the idea of such international movement rising in the future, and the future of nation-state whether if it can survive in the coming future era of space colonization and travel. Politicians of major countries watching this were growing concerned, especially those of the far right.

"Eventually by roughly 2080, this assembly helped organise various nations to hold joint efforts in space colonization. This resulting in the first wave of interplanetary colonization in the late 21st century with Luna, Mars, the Jovian moons, and other sites in the Sol system colonized. Mars in particular was successfully terraformed by newly developed terraforming technology that transformed Mars from a red, dead planet to a lively, green world." Serina announced as she played a video image for everybody to see in the room and on screen, where everybody watched in silent awe as they saw a time-lapse of Mars slowly turning into a lush world like that of Earth, allowing humanity to live on another planet. "However, despite the united work put into the colonization of these planets and space by Earth. New unstable elements rose to take advantage of the unrest happening on Earth and ambitions for power in the new frontier." Serina finished vaguely.

Viiding then said his piece. "When the UN facilitated colonization across the Sol system and the newly formed colonies began to develop, the mid-2100s saw a rebirth of old ideological movements. The Koslovics, a neo-communist organisation dedicated to receiving the glory days of communism and elimination of capitalist influence throughout the Sol system." An image of a Koslovic rally was shown, where thousands of people cheering for the speaker. "And the Frieden, a violent movement based on a fascist ideology that arose in Katreus city of Europa, opposing the Koslovics and the perceived oppression of the UN. They declared peace could only be achieved once every single presence of their oppressors was destroyed all across the star system – including on the home world itself." The UNSC representative finished as the holographic image switched to the image and video to a gathering of Frieden fighters cheering to a burning effigy of a UN official.

"Eventually, the tensions between the UN, the Koslovics, and Frieden would escalate into the Interplanetary Wars. A war that forever changed the course of human history." Serina said as she showed the image of UN, Koslovics, and Frieden forces clashing against one another whether it was on the ground or in space all across the Sol system. UN soldiers engaging in intense firefights with Koslovic forces in the ruins of Moscow; Koslovics attack bombers dropping their payloads on a space port of a Jovian colony, reducing the spaceport and everything into oblivion; Freiden star cruiser ripping apart a UN star transport with a barrage of missiles; and finally, a nuclear detonation blooming from the surface of central USA. "Also, the build-up and the war itself allowed the UN to use its increasing powers to bring national government under its power, and later forming the United Nations Space Command which combined all national militaries into a single unified, organised force. Following the Jovian Moon campaign, Rainforest Wars, and the Mars campaign which resulted in the UNSC reigning victorious; the Callisto Treaty was signed in 2178, ending the war and the disbandment of the Koslovics and Friedens."

"The Interplanetary Wars was the most devastating war humanity fought at the time with nearly a billion loss of life and over few trillion dollars' worth of property damage and economic hardships." Serina listed the losses and damages the Interplanetary Wars brought upon humanity in their timeline. "The massive scale and destruction of the war caused all national governments to nearly collapse or rendered powerless as the populace saw the UEG as the sole entity with legitimate authority and political power to lead humanity. Thus, the Unified Earth Government became a full-on governing entity, the once fractured human race unified under a single banner."

Serina showed an image and videos of the first president of the UEG standing behind a podium as she addressed to the cheering masses of millions about the peace and prosperity humanity would experience under one rule. The public watching it were fascinated by the idea of the world coming under one rule by a future successor of the United Nations, considered by many to be a joke, and the idea that they managed to secure the power and have nations submit to their control was nearly unfathomable.

"Was the most devastating war. I presume that there was a much bigger war similar to how WW2 was to WW1?" Olsen asked, having an uncomfortable feeling entering his heart.

"We will get there eventually, ambassador." Viiding said with a sombre tone.

"Moving on, the decades after the end of the war was tumultuous as the UEG was faced with overpopulation, famine, and recessing economy from the war. A solution was needed to solve all their problems and help expanding their borders." Serina said as she soon formed a smirk.

"The solution came from the work of two scientists whose mind and discovery exceeded Albert Einstein. Tobias Shaw and Wallace Fujikawa in the year 2291 developed what was considered the impossible – a functioning FTL system called the Slipspace Drive." The holographic image showed Shaw and Fujikawa standing together holding their Nobel Prize being applauded for their amazing discovery and solution to humanity current woes. "This FTL drive system allowed traveling at interstellar distance by traveling through an alternate dimension called Slipspace. With this new invention, the UEG launched the first wave of colony ships equipped with Slipspace drives to travel beyond the Sol System to claim new systems and worlds for humanity. This era of colonization was known as the Domus Diaspora or the Colonial era." Serina presented a video of the colony world of Arcadia colonised by three Phoenix-class colony ships. The video showed a time-lapse clip of the colony's development from a small town of prefabricated buildings to a bustling city full of skyscrapers and massive structures that put even the greatest of 21st century Earth's cities to shame. The audience were amazed by the development of Arcadia, eyes glued to the futuristic cityscape of Arcadia at how majestic it looked and the fact that this was a reality – albeit one happening in another universe. The Falmart natives had their jaws dropped in total awe as they saw what could be described as this small settlement transformed into a massive city fit for the gods to dwell and rule over.

"By the dawn of the 26th century, the inner colonies close to Earth and the core of human space was formed, and the outer colonies farthest from the core worlds. The peace and prosperity the UEG have experienced however lead to new problems as centuries passed by." Serina monologed as she moved to the next bloody chapter that was the insurrection. "The vast distances between colonies and the slow-nature of Slipspace drives over vast distances of space stretched the control of the UEG; resulting in corruption in managing the colonial matters of the outer colonies, and combined with later generations having no particular loyalties due to greed and illegal colonisation lead to resentment among the outer colonies. This resulted in calls for independence from the UEG by populace of several outer colonies. This raised concerns among the higher levels of the UEG and the UNSC as the outer colonies supplied several vital resources to the inner colonies and all of human space, thus losing them wasn't an option. However, many at Earth and the inner colonies were willing to negotiate with the movement for a compromise or allow independence while keeping the stability of the peace. As mentioned earlier, the vast distances and slow travel speed slowed the dialogues between two sides as it could take months for message to between colonies. This slow progress combined with a nuclear incident by a rogue commander and a hijacking of a UNSC ship, sparked the conflict known as the Insurrection as many rebel factions resorted to using excessive force to achieve their goals with a notable example being the nuclear bombing of Haven archology killing two million people in 2511. From there on UNSC responded with military action to put down the insurrection and restore order back to the colonies with both sides suffering heavy losses." Serina finished the brief summary of the insurrection as the holographic images and videos showed UNSC forces fighting against insurrectionists and dealing with terrorist attacks.

Viiding knew that explaining the insurrection was going to be a controversial one as there were going to be people who think that the UNSC was responsible for it, even with the atrocities the innie had committed against the civilian populace. He got a feeling that many were going to scrutinise the UNSC on that period to get a better sense of how to deal with the space-faring faction. He then saw Serina was looking at him and realised that it was his turn to explain the final piece… That one thing he didn't want to talk off but felt it was necessary to help prepare them.

The ongoing war with the Covenant.

"I presume that this is the final one?" Gonul stated his observation.

"Yes, and a partial reason to why we're here today. Before we continue on, I recommend that those who are sensitive to consider not watch this as what I'm about to show you is very disturbing." Viiding warned.

He then projected an image of the planet Harvest before its doomed fate. "This is Harvest, a peaceful farming colony of 3 million souls and the farthest colony world in human space. But on February third of 2525, all contact with Harvest was lost and the world gone dark. A recon ship was sent on April 12 to check the situation of the colony, that ship went missing as well. Fleet command sent Battle Group 4 compromising of 1 destroyer and two frigates to investigate this serious situation. When they entered Harvest system, they were greeted with the sight of Harvest… What was left of it, that is." Viiding finished sombrely as the image then changed to the current state of Harvest.

All over the world people gasped and cried out at the glassed Harvest, changed from the idyllic, lush world where it would've been an ideal paradise to a world of hellfire and raging super storms. They saw a world that was on fire, scorched across the surface and large clouds of ashes suffocating anything remotely close to being alive. Many could not imagine who and what would cause this horrific act.

"The battle group was met with Harvest's surface glassed and left uninhabitable. Soon they were met with a lone unidentified ship above the planet." Viiding zoomed onto an image of an unknown massive vessel that had purple bulbous portions and curves, and overall resembled some sort of predatory aquatic creature. "All attempts to hail this unknown ship failed, with the only message they sent was this." Viiding played the infamous message that forever changed humanity in his universe.

"Your destruction is the will of the gods and we are their instrument."

The words sent a chill down everybody's spine at the statement that had a tone of sinister intent that promised great consequences for those at its receiving end. Even Rory felt something horrible was about to be brought forth from those very words spoken similar to a fanatic worshipper and the dead, fiery world she was.

"After this message, the alien ship fired upon the battlegroup. Destroying the frigate Arabia, Vostok, and heavily damaging the destroyer Heracules in less than a minute." Viiding stated as he showed a footage of the Covenant super-destroyer swatting aside dozens of archer missiles like files and tanking the MAC shots effortlessly, and returning the favor with pulse lasers and plasma torpedoes that devastated the UNSC ships. "The Heracules managed to return back and inform the UNSC of what transpired, it was there we made first contact with alien lifeforms and our newest enemies."

"They called themselves the Covenant. A religious hegemony of multiple alien species that rule a large amount of space, all united by their worship to an ancient alien race they based all of their technology from. They claimed humanity needed to be cleansed from existence for their gods and for the Great Journey to continue. Thus, the Covenant declared a holy war – a genocidal campaign against all of humanity." Viiding finished with a dark tone.

"It was from here that humanity found themselves in a fight for their very survival as the Covenant waged a ruthless campaign of genocide, as they slaughtered any humans they could find and glass colonies to molten slag uninhabitable for many generations." Serina spoke as she showed footages of Covenant troops from the simple Grunts to the commanding Elites and the hulky, walking tanks that were the Hunters. The Covenant troops and vehicles butchering civilians without any remorse and killing in gruesome ways, plasma shots blowing up limbs or burning flesh or entire bodies reduced to unrecognisable burning husks. UNSC troops in the footage did they utmost best to hold the line and push the Covenant back, some were successful but many were forced to retreat under the technological onslaught of the Covenant armies. The footage changed to an orbital battle where few Covenant ships were easily dispatching a battle group several times larger than them. Energy weapons melting and tearing apart human ships as if they were wet paper while shrugging off MAC fire, nukes, and missiles.

The world watching this were horrified at the mindless, brutal violence happening on the screen as the screams of the dying of both sides sounding very too real for them. Many started to vomit or faint from the horrifying footage of the Human-Covenant war, the sheer terror and horror it brought unrivalled by atrocities that happened on Earth or the most gruesome horror films.

"The Covenant held superior advantages in many fields in their war; their advanced technology like their superior FTL speed, energy shielding, and plasma weaponry devastated any UNSC fleet they encountered, requiring UNSC ships to have number advantages of 3-1 ratio to overwhelm Covenant ships. Even with the number advantages the UNSC suffered massive losses." Serina stated. "The Battle of Alpha Aurigae in 2526 had 117 UNSC ships facing against 12 Covenant ships: resulting in total Covenant losses while the UNSC lost 37 ships. Battle of XI Bootis A in 2528, 70 UNSC ships against 8 Covenant warships: total Covenant loss in exchange for nearly 30 ships lost. These were considered morale-boosting victories by the UNSC." Serina said it as a matter of fact, ignoring the shocked reactions of the horrific casualty rate the UNSC navy suffered to defeat the Covenant.

"We found ourselves stranded in the orbit above Fantasia after sacrificing our Slipspace drive to deny an important asset to the Covenant, resulting in the crew left in cryogenic state as we went on to sub-light travel back to UNSC space with important intel. But after a massive unidentified surge of energy engulfing the ship, the Spirit of Fire was left where it is today. Our priority mission is to find a way back to UNSC space to continue helping with the war effort against the Covenant, but we will also help our brethren of this alternate Earth." Viiding finished.

"That is all." The UNSC representative sighed as he sat down.

"Any questions?" Serina asked as the room erupted in noise and commotion.


	17. RnR part 1

**18:12 Hours, April 1st, 2018 (UNSC - 2536)**  
 **Firebase Alpha, Medical Bay**

"Irisia, glad to see you in one piece." Vaughan greeted her in his combat fatigues.

"Thank you, major. The healer said that the arm would be healed soon, and along with other wounds." Irisa said as she tried to put on her cloak despite her left arm covered in cast.

"Let me help with that." Vaughan offered his aid, taking the purple cloak and put it around her and tied together.

"Thank you major. What happened when I was unconscious?" She asked. "Is the Manticore defeated?"

"Unless it could fight with its entire head gone. Yes, the Manitcore is dead." Vaughan replied. "Whatever your magic did with the launcher, it sure did the trick. You have everybody's thanks for that."

Vaughan however frowned at one detail. "But we've got dozens of KIA for the JSDF, and hundreds of KIA and MIA at Italica after its death, and half the city wrecked from the fighting. Your mentor didn't made it out alive."

Irisia's face turned mournful at the news of her mentor deceased from the Manticore. She gave out a silent prayer for her mentor's soul to find peace in the afterlife in Hardy's realm, but she didn't dwelled on his death too much, in fact she was surprised he was still alive in his old age. Death was part of daily life here: wars borne from desires conquest and enslavement ended with entire races or cities put to the sword or enslaved, where they suffered fate worst than death as either worked until your bones nothing but twigs or becoming toys until they broke or died; marauding bandits and beastmen attacked defenceless villages where they pillaged everything and left behind nothing; monsters of vile origin and great power terrorising anybody in their path; and the state of the world same as it was hundreds of years ago no matter how much studying and research the old farts at Rondel did everyday. Righteous people were rare breed as those who could become them were killed trying to save others or backstabbed by their fellows.

But the recent days was one of those rare days that despite the deaths and destructions that happened, there was a silver ray of hope for a better future and righteousness. A city saved from a massive bandit attack and later a Manitcore, a beast of great power slayed.

"With the Manitcore dead, the surrounding settlements and future generation don't have to worry about any Manitcore attacks, unless another move moves here. However that would be unlikely as the species are extremely small." Irisia said as she and Vaughan walked out of the medical bay – the UNSC's place of healing amazed with the strange, out-worldly tools and interior. Some of the medical tools she was familiar with while others were harder to fantom or understand the names of them and their purpose. Bone-knitting polymer; cryonics; biofoam; and sterile field generator. Though she understood their medical practices was much better than the current practices.

Walking through the hallway of the metallic-looking corriders of the base she was inside of, the purple haired woman glanced at passing men of the UNSC; wearing different types of unusual clothings and weapons in their hand – an advanced form of a crossbow taken to a whole new level. Sending small metal rods sparked by black powder – used in fireworks as amusement here – at unseen speed to rip apart any armour and flesh.

"And if you're wondering where the enchanted rocket launcher is. They sent the weapon to be studied how you did it." Vaughan said.

"Unless you have some mages with you won't able to explore the enchantment." The sorceress remarked, knowing the UNSC was unfamiliar with magic.

"Wonder what the engineers are thinking right now." The ODST major wondered. 

* * *

"Do you know how it works?" A UNSC engineer asked her partner, who was staring down on the lighting magic enchanted rocket launcher.

"Powered by BS from the report. But awesome magical BS with lightning." 

* * *

Vaughan and Irisia exited the command center of Firebase Alpha, where it became slightly more larger as more structures and personal were being transported in. The ex-slaves one of their recon teams freed were currently housed in hastily set up prefab housing near the firebase with basic utilities like beds, lighting, sanitations, and food given to them along with new clothes to replace the rags, and some marines advising them how to use them. With the variety of species in the freed slaves, UNSC medics and doctors used the medical checkup – which took quite a effort to calm the ex-slaves – believing they were going to be tortured or sacrificed. They were getting used to the new living condition luxurious and clean compared to many rooms they've seen, making the quarters of a senator's villa look ironically poor in comparison.

Meanwhile, the Japanese woman that was rescued was already treated by the medics and given few days of rest before arrangements for her to be sent to Alnus Hill was finished. The Japanese leadership were outraged at Japanese at the unknown, but heavily suspected fate of the Japanese citizens kidnapped through the gate. However it was from her that they found out that several foreigners were taken through the gate, their fate mostly known, but was told from her that they were either taken to the mines or bought by wealthy individuals.

International outrage would come if it was found out if citizens of other countries were taken as slaves.

Besides the slaves, Vaughan spotted handful of dark elves sitting around at a corner of the firebase, looking around their surrounding with confusion and awe. He recognised one of the dark elves being Ivern, the head of the Dark Elf forces. He looked well composed despite the alieness of his surroundings, searching for any signs of threats to his kin.

And there was this humanoid reptilian species called Lizardkin who was tall as a Spartan and wielding a poleaxe large enough to cleave through a man with a single strike. Vaughan could see marines giving him space and looking at him from the distance while the lizardkin was cleaning his weapon.

Oh and he saw Cera sniffing at one of the parked Grizzly tanks, unsure if the metallic-looking thing in front of her was competition or not as the tank's scent threw her off. All the while a poor SOB was trying to get the dinosaur away from the tanks.

"Cera, please not now." Irisia called out, causing the dinosaur to let out a huff and walking away from the tanks.

The sorceress then turned to face the ODST. "Vaughan, I have to ask where are we heading off to next?" The woman asked.

"We going to head off to the airpad where a Pelican is going to take us and few others to see captain Cutter."

"The leader of your army? For what purpose?"

"Showing what you're in for." He internally grinned in anticipation. 

* * *

The past following days after the Diet meeting shaked the global world with the revelation, overshadowing the original point of the diet meeting which was about the refugee attack to the point that the ones who started the meeting forgot about it.

Every news channel, talk shows, radio stations, and interviews were talking about the UNSC and where they came from. Scientists were debating and discussing of the once impossibility of FTL travel now being viable, and how it will change everything on science. Engineers were talking of the possible engineering behind the Spirit of Fire and what kind of advancement Earth would need to make a viable spaceship like that of the UNSC vessel. Few politicians and sociologists talking of the how the UEG could be formed here and the necessary works needed to be done to make it efficient, along with the pros and cons of such system.

There was also the panic and fear of the new technology and the threat of ruthless alien invaders. The former were afraid of new technologies the UNSC possessed that would most definitely put the final nail to the coal and oil industries, causing stocks to fall and companies to think of switching to green energy for their business to prosper and survive on what may be a beginning of a new age of energy. For the latter, riots were appearing over the world as the footages of the Covenant ruthlessly exterminating humans and the statement of their intent of cleansing humanity from existence, drove people in a state of hysteria. The fear of if the Covenant existed in this universe or hostile alien speices beyond their system drove people to the streets of what should be done, many calling for unification in case of meeting hostile aliens; some calling for the gate to be destroyed; others committed suicide or took advantage of the fear among the people for their own gain.

Behind the scenes from the view of the public, the highest level of government of key nations of the world were in a meeting with the available data they know of concerning the UNSC, especially the Japanese government.

The shared sentiments Japan had with others was the concern of a unified government which would result in a loss of sovereignty, and how to gain the UNSC's advanced technology to gain an advantage for their country and people. And how to retain their hold on the special region that was gifted to them. The Ultranationalists were gaining power and support ever since the attack on Ginza followed by the formation of the Special Task Force to lead a expedition through the gate.

"This is a disaster! We've lost several helicopters and dozens of dead by some blasted beast, while those space gaijins more or less have the city under their control!" A cabinet member yelled in frustration.

"Calm down, Takuji. Anger isn't going to get us anywhere." One cabinet member reprimanded.

"The losses we suffered created public outcry against us, they're doubting their trust in our army!" Takuji cried out. "We're on the verge of being forced to call upon the Americans and the UN on Japanese soil."

"Too late about that with the UNSC." A female cabinet member grunted.

"The special region is supposed to be a game-changing asset we need to make Japan great again, and putting away the chains we're connected with the Americans." Another elderly cabinet member said. "The special region is Japanese territory! They have no rights to intrude on our lands and do whatever they want!"

"Technically the international community does not recognise the move or vast majority of our people." Another member coughed out.

"And also what do you suppose we do? Fight against the ones with a spaceship and advanced technology? Or make demands that they hand their technology over to use for violating our sovereignty?" The female member sarcastically asked.

"They cannot take away the special region away from us, when it was handed to us!"

"So you're not suggesting we fight them!? That's going to bring us nothing but total disaster!"

Prime Minister Motoi Shinzo listened to the arguments within his cabinet, feeling migraine entering his head at the future stress he was about to be facing and the mess Japan would be in. Between trying to calm the public of the first loss of JSDF personal in combat ever since WW2, trying to keep a monopoly on the gate from the international community, and figuring out how to salvage the situation with the UNSC establishing their presence on the special region. Japan was in a precarious position where they had to carefully balance their actions in order to remain in an advantageous position over the affairs of the special region.

The other countries may protest at Japan's sole claim over the gate and try to enact sanctions against them, but the special region's untapped resources provides them an huge advantage that other countries do not have. Then the arrival of the United Nations Space Command changed everything in the equation and a unknown factor they had no control over or any intelligences on the UNSC's number and the capability of their starship.

If the endeavour on the special region didn't worked out, being the sole role as a mediator between Earth and the UNSC Spirit of Fire would give them the cards on the political table. Gaining first access to the UNSC technology – considering they announced they were reviewing and will cooperate to see what kind of technology would be available and how it can be used – would propel Japan's technology by several decades along with the position as the sole provider of advanced space technologies.

"Everybody, please be quiet. Despite the unexpected setback we're now facing, there are ways to salvage this in our favor." Shinzo silenced the room.

"And what would that be Prime Minister?" One of his cabinet partially asked and demanded.

"Despite the possible loss of the Special Region from under our control to the UNSC and UN forces being sent through if the pressure keeps mounting up. We are still have sole access to the gate and in extension, a possible first privilege in gaining UNSC tech first and the ones able to distribute it."

"Not all is lost."


	18. RnR part 2

**18:19 Hours, April 1st, 2018 (UNSC - 2536)**

 **JSDF Alnus Base**

UN representative Greta Kuckailyte, JNN reporter Nonaka Chiko, BBC reporter Zachary Mortier, and dozens of other individuals from different organisations, along with marine escorts were heading towards an Albatross dropship parked on the airfield of JSDF Alnus base – currently undergoing construction to setup hangar and storage facilities for future Japanese fixed-wing aircrafts and supplies.

The reporters and representatives of different organisations all carefully reviewed by Serina were invited to take a tour aboard the UNSC _Spirit of Fire_ to show more of the universe the ship came from and giving a little more in-depth knowledge of the ship and its crew that wasn't treading on any classified or sensitive information. Not only this but there were considerations of possible exchange of advanced technology sharing between the UNSC and Earth: medical, agricultural, space travel, energy generation and numerous other advancements that could propel the global world to a new future.

Soon the group from Earth were led inside of the modified heavy dropship where improvised seating was added on to accommodate the new passengers. Looking around the interior in amazement at details not unlike of any airplanes or a NASA space shuttle. The representatives and reporters soon took the nearest seat and buckled themselves to the instruction of the marine escorts, who then gave the thumbs up to the pilot for take-off.

"Alright ladies and gentleman, prepare yourself cause you're going to enjoy the ride of the century." The UNSC pilot spoke out as he made final. "Spirit of Fire actual, this is Dropper 3 reporting in, we're ready for take-off." The pilot spoke through the ship COM.

"Dropper 3 you're cleared to go."

The thrusters of D96-TCE Albatross turned bright blue as the engines made the heavy dropship lift itself slowly from the ground, scattering dust around the dropship from its power. The heavy dropship began to accelerate through the sky for few seconds before it up the sky at over supersonic speeds, becoming a rapidly shrinking dot for those at the base.

The passengers from Earth peaked out of the small viewports of the albatross, absorbing in the sight of the land below them slowly becoming smaller and smaller by the minute. They saw themselves passing through the sea of clouds as the blue sky started to dim away beneath them. And in that moment, they found themselves looking at the eternal darkness of space, the final frontier.

The passengers stared in wonderment at the world below them, their breaths taken away by the sight of the garden world below them; along with the reality they were actually seeing it from space. The camera recording the sight made sure everything was being saved as footage for future broadcasts and documentaries.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we're approaching the UNSC _Spirit of Fire_." The pilot announced as the passengers looked out of the small windows to gain a better view of the ship they were soon about to board.

* * *

Several minutes earlier:

Irisia stared with wide eyes and mouth gaping at she stared out of the cockpit of the Pelican to the vast darkness of outer space. Her eyes taking in the innumerable masses of stars, shining like a beacon in a sea of darkness; and the ball of blue and green at the side captured her soul with its silent beauty. But one thing that grabbed her attention was the sphere below her. The very world she was born and living in, and where the land of Falmart was could be seen high beyond the heavens.

No words could describe this beautiful sight.

From the realm far above the heavens she could see the bright blue sea and the myriad of colors from green to yellow covering the expansive land that covered a vast portion of the world. Oh, how she wished she could have all sages here to see this for themselves along with the experience of being in the Great Void itself.

The first Falmartian to be in space.

"Liking the view?" Vaughan asked behind her as he let her take in the view of space.

"It's… Beautiful…" Irisia answered with an expression of awe.

"Well you're going to find this one interesting." Petty Officer First Class Ali Leblanc spoke out, the co-pilot working on station of the dropship's weapons and operation system.

"Spirit of Fire Actual, this is Quebec 204 coming in. ETA 5 minutes." Ali's mother, CPO Jennifer Leblanc reported through the COMs.

"Copy that Quebec 204. You're cleared for arrival. Be aware, Dropper 3 is coming behind you, ETA 7 minutes." The communications officer relayed.

The purple-haired sorceress then noticed an object far away, barely perceivable by the eye. In the background of the darkness, she could barely see some sort of object in the void still like stone and above the world. When the object became bigger as the Pelican came closer to the thing, her eyes widen as the details of the object became clearer to her.

"Welcome to the UNSC _Spirit of Fire_. Our spaceship." Vaughan said as the SOF came into full view.

She saw the object had a similar design theme to the UNSC, yet looked massive but couldn't get an accurate scale to know how monstrously big it was. And yet it was also made of metal…

Irisia glanced to Vaughan and asked. "When you said that your people were stranded here and travelled the land to find help, that wasn't the truth is it?"

"Though could be seen from a certain point of view." Vaughan replied.

"Anyway, you said this was your ship? If this doesn't travel on the sea. Does this mean your ship TRAVELs through the void!?" Irisia exclaimed, fuelled by her desire to know how it was possible as her face got little too close to Vaughan's face.

"Personal space here, Irisia." Vaughan said as he slightly pushed her off. "You'll get question soon when we board the ship." He then redirected her back to the passenger section to prepare for landing procedures onto the vessel.

* * *

Dropper 3 entered the primary hanger on the left bow arm of the _Spirit of Fire_ as the launch bay doors closed after the Albatross entered and the airlock pressuring the interior. Alarms blared as the heavy dropship was magnetically held and brought to the main hanger bay where countless aircrafts and support personal were working.

The Dropper 3's door opened up to allow its 21st century passengers to disembark from it and experience of being the first humans from Earth to be on an actual, functioning spaceship. Cameras took footage and photographs of the inside of hanger bay where various ship personnel were rushing around them and methodically working. They saw robotic rovers, cargo walkers, munition loaders, utility drones, cranes, and naval personal moving crates and cargos around the hanger or loading them into dozens of Darter supply transports or other types of transports. The audience and professionals back at Earth took in the detail of the operation undergoing in the hanger, fascinated by the appearance of the interior of the UNSC ship.

"You're getting this right?" A news reporter asked his camera operator.

"I'm getting all of them." She replied.

"I can't believe we're on a freaking spaceship. This thing makes spaces shuttles look like something built by cave men."

"Wonder where they're going to take us."

Then the group were met by a team of UNSC marines who then escorted them away from the bustling hanger bay to the room where the captain was awaiting them. Cameras had to be turned off for a while until they arrived at their destination.

They were taken through smooth, bare hallways filled with UNSC personals wandering about before riding a service elevator down multiple decks. After the elevator ride, they then boarded the ship's tram systems that took them to another section of the ship where they disembark to arrive at the ship's mini-museum. Standing in the middle of the room was a middle-aged man wearing a grey military service uniform.

"Captain Cutter of the UNSC navy. Welcome aboard the _Spirit of Fire_." Cutter greeted them.

* * *

"Your ship is like an entire city itself!" Irisia cried out in amazement looking around the corridor of the ship, everything made out of metal and some materials she never touched or seen before. The handful of crew members at deck 4 of section 3 looked at her with curiosity before resuming their work.

"You said this ship is over 2.5 kilometres long by your measurement and comparing it with my world's measurement. It's over a league long." The sorceress whispered out loud, unable to believe something this big could be man-made. "That's big enough to fit an entire city of people inside it."

"Also how do you made it fly in the great void? With the entire ship made of metal, its weigh would be overwhelming!?" Irisia rapidly asked the two questions, her breath running ragged from lack of air.

Vaughan looked at Irisia with amusement at her curiosity and soon calmed her down. "That's the kind of information I don't know or can freely give away unless with direct permission from the higher ups." He chuckled when he saw the look of annoyance as if a child was denied candy.

"Though I can say it requires a great deal of knowledge and craftsmanship."

"Great deal of knowledge and crafting huh. With the lack of magic here, your skills make the dwarves look like Ratkin blacksmith." Irisia complimented. "Though I do wonder where I'm being taken to." She asked, feeling a bit tense.

"Taking you to a doctor or professor Anders. She wants to know the trick you did back with the Manticore and has an offer for you." Vaughan replied.

"What kind of of-." Irisia was then inturrpted by Professor Anders coming in.

Professor Anders approached the two. "Major Vaughan, good to see you here." She turned to face Irisia. "Ah you must be the sorceress. I'm Professor Ellen Anders."

"Irisia La Krystallo, sorceress from Rondel. Nice to meet you Sage Anders" She greeted back with a bow.

Anders raised a brow over the title before Vaughan told her. "The local's equivalent word for professor."

"Ah, I see. I look forward to working with you Ms. Krystallo. You heard of the UNSC needing your help, right?"

Irisia nodded.

"The captain would debrief with you after his business is finished with other guests. In the mean time I'll bring you two to an empty storage bay we improvised as a small test site, get you used to the environment and basic idea of what we will be doing." Anders explained as she led Irisia and Vaughan to the storage bay for Irisia to be briefed and demonstrate the fine arts of magic.

For Irisia, she was looking forward to this partnership, which might possibly change all of Falmart.

* * *

"I'll start off the tour and discussion here, the short history of my ship the UNSC Spirit of Fire." Cutter said after greetings and pleasantries were exchanged, and cameras turned on to record the tour.

"The _Spirit of Fire_ finished construction in the year 2473 as a Phoenix-class colony ship commanded by captain Kelly Coleman, carrying out colonisation and terraforming mission for the UEG. Ferrying tens of thousands of colonists to new colonies, and carrying hydroponics, atmospheric generators, and prefabricated structures." Cutter started off. "Ships like her would terraform worlds until they were habitable before dropping colonists and prefabricated structures to jumpstart a settlement, along with the ship's factory modules manufacturing needed supplies and additional buildings for the settlement's growth. And in many cases the ship itself dismantled as additional materials."

"After nearly 50 years of service as a colony ship and with the departure of her final civilian captain, Ali Alexander. The Spirit of Fire was then requisitioned by the UNSC navy and refitted extensively for combat operation as a support ship against insurrectionist. Her hull augmented with Titanium-A armor, weapons system ranging from coil guns to missiles and point-defence turrets. Along with her compliments replaced with military equipment, and modified to deploy entire prefabricated firebases at moment's notice." Cutter finished.

Many were surprised by the fact that the ship was capable of terraforming worlds and carried an on-board factory, and that it was originally a civilian ship later modified for military service.

JNN reporter Chiko asked the first question. "Captain Cutter, may I ask why the ship was remodified for military service? Isn't it rather excessive for a civilian ship to be retrofitted for military usage?"

"Insurrection activity was at all-time high across vast distances of space. And the UNSC needed additional carrier-type vessels for expeditionary warfare and ground force support. The Phoenix-class was simply a suitable one to easily and cheaply convert." Cutter responded. "We have other forms of carriers ranging from light carriers to supercarriers nearly twice the size of this ship."

This had the folks be nervous and curious to what kind of ships the UNSC had if there were much larger ships than the _Spirit of Fire_. A behemoth of a spaceship overshadowing the SOF. A sight to witness if they could.

"If the ship has an on-board factory, shouldn't it be easy for your crew to make an FTL drive?" BBC reporter Mortier questioned.

"Constructing a slip-space drive is not within our capability. The factory here is capable of manufacturing many things but even with a manufacturing template, it lacks the mechanical components to put one together. As we said before, we're stranded here." Cutter said.

"And when the factory is capable of making things. Does that mean it can make nukes?" A NATO representative asked.

Cutter said nothing as he simply stared at the military personal with the NATO and US military badge. The UNSC captain's calculating and harden eyes stared into the very soul of the representative, who was soon feeling a little bit off by the stare and wondered if the question was bit too sensitive.

"No… It cannot…" Cutter answered.


	19. Side Story 2: Gunshow

**Alnus Base**

"Alright folks! Today's a special day for all you troops and gun lovers of the 21st century!" Sergeant Paula Corta announced to the crowd of soldiers, camera crew, and etc.

The UNSC sergeant was standing behind a long row of tables with standard UNSC weapons laying on top along with ammo from 12.7mm pistol rounds to rockets. Today was going to be a great day for her and her team as they are going to demonstrate UNSC firearms and vehicles to there alternative ancestors.

"Ladies and gentlemen! I welcome you all for coming here today to see the first part of today's demonstration of UNSC weaponry." Corta spoke out loud. "Many of you came here to see how 26th century weapons of the future are like, and let me tell you something. If you're expecting lasers or railguns, you're ain't going to find them in large quantities here. Because making mass-produceable infantry railguns and laser weapons is much difficult than it appears and the old saying of "If it ain't broken, don't fix it". So we're still using good old chemical-propellant guns, but modified upon and advanced through out the centuries that the UNSC reached the apex of chemical propellant." She explained, quite aware that some morons on the web were going to go 'Lolz the UNSC is stupid and primitive' or similar variety.

Corta went to the first table holding a M6C pistol. "This baby here is the standard firearm of the UNSC armed forces, the M6 pistol series, currently serving at least over 100 years with many variants. This variant is the M6C, and like most of its siblings this baby fires the standard-issue 12.7x40mm armor-piercing high explosive rounds." She held up the M6C for the camera to get and her other hand holding up the round in question.

"Holy cow, that's a .50cal pistol round. Like the Desert Eagle. Quite the power for a sidearm" Master Sergeant Williams of the US military and co-partner to Corta remarked what most of the crowd were thinking. "The recoil on that thing is going to be insane."

"Well you're going to be in for a surprise." Corta said as she aimed the M6C at the NJL Level III armoured range target over hundred meters away from her and fired. The soldiers were amazed at how little recoil the gun had – much less than the standard 9mm pistols as the gun barely moved in her hands – and the target range being obliterated by the overpowered pistol rounds. Their current 9mm pistols were peashooters compared to the UNSC M6 pistols.

Finishing her remaining rounds Corta turned to her audience. "Well you see folks, the UNSC does not mess around in giving our troops the best sidearm. And off course getting the bang necessary to crack 26th century armor – which would laugh off large quantities of 9mm rounds. Our troops would only feel a tickle."

Corta then moved to the next table where a UNSC private was standing by with a M7 SMG waiting to be used.

"Next is the M7 SMG or the bullet hose, firing 5x23mm caseless rounds in a 60-round mag. Highly effective at close range against unshielded targets and capable of tearing apart armor and flesh into bits. Aim it at a gorilla and you'll get is minced meat." Corta explained as she aimed the SMG at her target and fired at the armoured target dummy in burst fire until she emptied her mag. "Oh and depending on situation or strength, you can dual-wield them into combat but not recommended since the recoil in full auto can be somewhat troublesome despite its raw power."

Putting down the M7, Corta moved to the next table where a MA5B assault rifle was on. "Next up is the standard-issue assault rifle of the UNSC armed forces, the MA5B assault rifle of the MA5 series. The rifle is equipped with a ammo counter and uses 60-round magazines chambered in 7.62x51mm rounds. Oh don't you think we're using vietnam-era rounds or something dumb; these little babies are the kind you're fire from a high-powered sniper rifles or medium machine guns, except with better propellants that makes them more powerful."

Williams was surprised by the rifle. "60 7.62mm rounds!? Wouldn't the recoil be too great to manage considering the M14 rifle failed to do so? And how did you guys crammed that many round into the rifle!? That's impossible! Also I noticed the lack of sights on the rifle, how do you aim this thing?"

"All UNSC soldiers were equipped with neural interface." Corta pointed to the back of her head where the neural interface could be seen. Point your weapon at a target or zoom in, a target reticle will appear and zoom in for you by smart scope, though scopes and iron sights are used. In this case with the weapon, it has a pop up sight." The marine made the MA5B's pop up sight appear from the crowling. "Oh and on the 60-round mag… God bless UNSC engineers." She smirked with pride. "One of the best features of the MA5B is the recoil-dampener system inside that reduces recoil by nearly 90%, meaning plenty of freshly graduated recruits can fire this rifle pin-point accuracy with one hand or full auto at targets around over 300m range."

Corta aimed the MA5B at the target over 300m away with the iron sight and fired few burst at the target dummy, the powerful 7.62mm rounds tearing through the armor like wet tissue. She then switched the fire to full-auto to impress the audience as she pressed the trigger to release a hailstrom of metal slugs. Williams looked at the rifle impressed at how little recoil the rifle gave out as Corta fired it on full-auto while hitting the target. All the soldiers were stunned and impressed with the amazing accuracy and the near non-existent coil of the assault rifle firing on full auto. UNSC soldiers in comparison had much advantage in accuracy and superior firepower.

"Moving on to the close-quarter favourite of the UNSC. The M90 Close Assault Weapon System shotgun, your go to shotty for anything that needs to get freaking disintegrated right in front of you." Corta showed off the shotgun before bringing up its pellet. "Using several superior and powerful Soellkrat 8 gauge shells, you can stop a charging grizzly bear dead stop and make it land on its back with one shot. Yes it's that powerful and manageable thanks to its recoil dampner system built into it." She tapped the shotgun as if it was a adorable child before aiming at the target dummy, shooting out the shotgun shells as it obliterated it.

She moved to the next station where a battle rifle sat waiting to be shown and picked it up. "Next is the newest addition to the UNSC firearm inventory, the BR55 battle rifle, the marine standard-issue marksman rifle, though it's common enough to be a service rifle for a sizeable number of units. It is equipped with a standard 2x scope which that and recoil reduction and powerful rounds allow it to have a effective range of 900 meters."

"900 meters? Quite the range for a battle rifle weapon. Nearly verging on a sniper rifle range. Man can wait to try it out." Williams whistled.

Corta continued on. "It also has selective-fire with 3-round burst the standard firing mode, and with all UNSC firearms it's equipped with recoil reduction tech. And finally it fires 9.5x40mm M634 experimental high-powered semi-armor-piercing round in a 36-round magazine, and using the newest experimental chemical propellants that makes the gun much powerful than the MA5 and comparable to a elephant gun." She then demonstrated the BR55 by firing at the target dummy 900 meters away, the three-round burst fire making short work of the target in a rapid succession. The high-level armor shattered apart and the dummy reduced to nothing.

"Moving on is the favoured sniper rifle of the UNSC." The marine moved to the next table where a large anti-material type SR was lying around which she picked up to show. "The SRS99C-S2 AM sniper rifle, the standard-issue sniper for all UNSC ground forces. Chambered in 14.5mmx114mm APFSDS rounds and with a effective range of 2300 meters for pin-point accuracy."

Williams looked at the weapon in fascination. "AMR as standard issue for anti-personal? That's quite overkill for a simple sniper rifle."

"With the advancement in body armour tech, you're going to need some long-range big guns to end some SOB's life. And besides with the Covie aliens, you're facing off against an army of heavily armoured and shielded aliens that can easily tear apart humans with little effort and built like steel, and some strong enough to beat a grizzly bear to death."

Corta's eyes then moved to the final weapon to be demonstrated, and something she was going to enjoy. "Next up is the M41 SPNKR rocket launcher, the UNSC's go to weapon to blow stuff to oblivion if its infantry, vehicle, or fortification. The Spnkr is unique in that it uses a pair of detachable barrels where the rockets are stored in, and the barrel cycles when one is fired to be used in rapid succession, making it a semi-disposable launcher. Even though as of now the M41 is considered obsolete, the sheer amount of weapons produced and simplicity allowed it to be kept in UNSC arsenal for now."

She then aimed the rocket launcher at a broken down Type 74 tank that was deemed not worth repairing. Pressing the trigger she fired one 102mm rocket that speared through the air and detonated against the armoured vehicle. The 21st century armor of the tank blown apart as if it never existed as the HE round tore apart the tank in a large ball of fire. And after the fire disappeared and smoke clearing away, a large portion of the tank was barely recognisable as melted scrap metal, along with what remained of the turret was lying around several meters away.

"Holy crap, there's barely nothing left of the tank." Williams observed the tank remains.

"Well there's more weapons to show, but I'm only authorised with what we have today. But you'll get the chance to see more fancy toys we have." Corta assured.

'Wonder how they're react to the Stranchion and that prototype laser weapon?'


	20. Slavetown Part 1

Marcus was terrified.

It was supposed to be a normal day of slave trade at the town of Peron, one of the biggest slave markets in the Empire, where countless slaves are brought in to be bought and sold every day.

So, when several months ago the news about the gate on Alnus hill was being opened and that an Imperial expeditionary army was being sent through to gain glory, treasures, and new slaves for the Empire reached Peron the town exploded in activity in anticipation of new slaves filling up the market. Except soon after there were barely any slaves sent to the town as rumors were spoken of the Imperial army and the allied kingdoms' armies being destroyed by the invaders from the other side of the gate.

Many expected thousands of brand-new valuable slaves in the town to be bought and sold making them extremely wealthy. But all they got was barely a pittance of slaves and grumbling customers and rumors of the sheer power of the men in green – who was said to field an army of mages, controlling iron animals and dragons.

However as of recent times there was a new group of people like the men of green said to control even greater powers, and by latest rumors from places near Alnus hill, they had control over a massive fortress that could fly in the sky! Off course many did not believed them except those who claimed to have seen it. Unlike the men of green, they were colored in grey or brownish-green armor, granting them the name of the men of grey or as they called themselves the Euu ann ess see.

And they were attacking Peron.

Marcus saw great balls of fire engulfing few buildings and the earth spewing out as if something hit them in a rapid succession. He saw several of the guards ripped horrifically into small pieces of burnt and ripped meat. Others were torn apart or scorched by the balls of fire exploding upon the ground. The slave owner was dragging his recently purchased slave from the other world, a rather young man, away from the chaos to somewhere safe where he can flee to his estate near the capital.

An exhausting endeavour when his slave was resisting him, screaming out what could only be curses in some barbaric language.

When he exited the alleyway, he saw a frightening sight of a large metal bird landing on the ground as several olive-armoured men came out of its back. Marcus realised in terror that they were the men of grey, one whose power was fabled to overpower the men of green. And to his luck, one of them saw him and gestured the others towards his general direction. The slave owner tried to run but his barbaric slave managed to land a punch to his face, stunning him long enough that the men of grey captured him.

"Let go of me you barbarians! I demand you let me go!" He screamed at his captors as one of them freed his only slave who hugged his rescuer.

One of the armoured beings came up to him and brought a black object down upon his face. He tried to fight back but darkness enveloped both his mind and vision. 

* * *

**03:14 Hours, April 5th, 2018 (UNSC – 2536)**  
 **Peron, Fantasia**

Several bodies fell to the ground with a thud, a new bloody hole on their forehead. UNSC marines methodically eliminated any hostiles that tried to attack them, while those who looked important were taken down with non-lethal methods like stun grenades or knockout gas, for interrogation. The JSDF troops working with them helped secure areas of interest or take out enemy soldiers.

An archer suddenly popped out of a window and fired an arrow at one of the marines, the arrow grazing the head but bouncing off the marine's helmet harmlessly. The poor archer was perforated with dozens of bullets in return by the armed group. The hit marine simply cursed that he allowed himself to get hit by a dinky arrow.

Few men with swords turned around an alleyway trying to ambush the attackers, though futile as their motion trackers had spotted them. JSDF troops easily dropped two of the four hostiles with few shots from their Type-64 rifle; one swordsman had over half of his upper body blasted by a M90 shotgun. However, the last one got too close and swung his sword at the closest marine, who managed to avoid a sword to the neck by bringing up her armoured forearm, the sword barely leaving a scratch on the armor. The female marine shot the surprised swordsman with a burst from her SMG.

Warthogs deployed from Pelicans supported infantry or secured critical positions, using their mobility and heavy weaponry to quickly gain ground and demolish hostile forces.

Eventually, the UNSC and JSDF soldiers were half-way in clearing out and securing the town of all hostile forces. Slave owners and such were captured and detained with the Slaves being freed and escorted to secure zones where UNSC/JSDF were handing out humanitarian aid; while special attention being given to find any prisoners taken from Earth.

"Have the freed slaves be given the food and water." Major Araki ordered as nearby troops took out crates filled with said items from landing dropships and helicopters.

The joint UNSC-JSDF forces composed of few hundred soldiers and vehicles more or less occupied all of Peron – a key hub of the slave trade within the continent of Falmart. After the return of a Japanese slave kidnapped during the Battle of Ginza, it brought out massive public outrage both in Japan and the world on the knowledge of Japanese citizens and possibly missing foreign citizens enslaved. Resulting in the JSDF/UNSC starting Operation CHAINBREAKER and the creation of JTF Rei to rescue any enslaved people from Earth.

The first target was Peron, a key site of the Falmart slave trade and one of the biggest sources of slaves for the Empire. Thanks to information gathered from freed slaves and Princess Pina after some 'convincing', the UNSC/JSDF had basic ideas of where to search for the kidnapped individuals from Earth.

The mission at Peron was going smoothly, Major Araki observed so far. No reports of KIA among his forces yet aside from some WIA from lucky arrow shots or ambushes in CQC environment within buildings. None for the UNSC, well unsurprising with their impressive body armor technology they have for their soldiers to allow them to tank hits otherwise be lethal for 21st century armor. Heck, he remembered the armor of the elite black soldiers shrugging dozens of rounds from an LMG point blank as part of a demonstration.

He looked up to see over a dozen aircraft, mostly UNSC, flying around the airspace of the town. Despite officially being a JSDF-led joint-ops the UNSC did most of the heavy lifting, being able to drop a large number of troops and materials at moment's notice in their larger aircraft.

Speaking of which, did that dropship just drop a tank?


End file.
